1. Then there was a great outcry from the people and their wives to their fellow Jews.
2. There were those who said, “We and our sons and our daughters are numerous. We must take grain, so we may eat and live.”
3. There were others who said, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards and our houses in order to obtain grain during the famine.”
4. Still others were saying, “We have borrowed money to pay the king’s tax on our fields and vineyards.
5. And now, though we share the same flesh as our brothers, and our children are just like their children, still we subject our sons and our daughters to slavery. Some of our daughters have already been enslaved but our hands are tied since our fields and vineyards belong to others.”