10 Both I and my brothers, with my servants, have lent money and grain to many. Let us agree not to ask for its return. Let us forgive the other money that is owed to us.
11 On this day, restore their fields, and their vineyards, and their olive groves, and their houses to them. Then, too, the hundredth part of the money, and of the grain, wine, and oil, which you usually exact from them, give it to them.'
12 And they said: 'We will restore it, and we will require nothing from them. And we will do just as you say.' And I called the priests, and I had them swear an oath, so that they would act in accord with what I had said.
13 Moreover, I shook out my lap, and I said: 'So may God shake out every man, who does not fulfill this word. From his house and from his labors, so may he be shaken out and become empty.' And the entire multitude said, 'Amen.' And they praised God. Therefore, the people acted in accord with what was said.
14 Now from that day, on which the king had ordered me to be governor in the land of Judah, from the twentieth year even to the thirty-second year of king Artaxerxes, for twelve years, I and my brothers did not eat the yearly allowance that was owed to the governors.
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