Nehemiah 1:11-2:4

New King James Version

¹¹ O Lord, I pray, please ^(A)let Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant, and to the prayer of Your servants who ^(B)desire to fear Your name; and let Your servant prosper this day, I pray, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.”

For I was the king’s ^(C)cupbearer.

Nehemiah Sent to Judah

2 And it came to pass in the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of ^(D)King ^[a]Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, that ^(E)I took the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had never been sad in his presence before. ² Therefore the king said to me, “Why is your face sad, since you are not sick? This is nothing but ^(F)sorrow of heart.”

So I became ^[b]dreadfully afraid, ³ and said to the king, ^(G)“May the king live forever! Why should my face not be sad, when ^(H)the city, the place of my fathers’ tombs, lies waste, and its gates are burned with ^(I)fire?”

⁴ Then the king said to me, “What do you request?”

So I ^(J)prayed to the God of heaven.