Nehemiah 5:13-15

New Catholic Bible

¹³ I also shook out the folds of my garment and said: “So may God shake out from home and property everyone who fails to adhere to this promise. May every such man be shaken out and emptied.”^[a]

All the assembled people said “Amen” and praised the Lord, and they did as they promised.

¹⁴ Nehemiah’s Lack of Self-Interest. Moreover, from the twentieth year that King Artaxerxes appointed me to be their governor in the land of Judah until the thirty-second year, neither I nor my brothers ate the food allotted to the governor by the king. ¹⁵ On the other hand, the former governors, my predecessors, had laid a heavy burden on the people and exacted from them forty shekels of silver each day for food and wine, while their servants also oppressed the people. However, because I feared God, I did not act in this way.