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After reflecting over what to do, I determined to confront those responsible directly: the Jewish nobles and the officials who represented Araxerxes’ interests in Jerusalem.

Nehemiah: You are exploiting your own people by charging them interest!

And a great many people assembled to witness my sentencing of the leaders.

Nehemiah: At great expense we have been laboring to buy back our brothers and sisters, fellow Jews who have been enslaved to pagan nations. Now we discover that you are the ones selling them away in the first place—we are buying them from you!

There was nothing they could say; their silence confirmed their guilt.

Nehemiah: This thing you are doing is not good. Is it not good to walk and live our lives in fear of the awesomeness of our True God? Your actions cause our enemies, those pagan nations, to mock us.

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I pondered them in my mind and then accused the nobles and officials. I told them, “You are charging your own people interest!”(A) So I called together a large meeting to deal with them and said: “As far as possible, we have bought(B) back our fellow Jews who were sold to the Gentiles. Now you are selling your own people, only for them to be sold back to us!” They kept quiet, because they could find nothing to say.(C)

So I continued, “What you are doing is not right. Shouldn’t you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach(D) of our Gentile enemies?

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