¹⁸ Didn’t your ancestors do the same things, so that our God brought all this calamity on us and on this city?^(A) Now you are stirring up more wrath against Israel by desecrating the Sabbath.”^(B)

¹⁹ When evening shadows fell on the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath,^(C) I ordered the doors to be shut and not opened until the Sabbath was over. I stationed some of my own men at the gates so that no load could be brought in on the Sabbath day. ²⁰ Once or twice the merchants and sellers of all kinds of goods spent the night outside Jerusalem.