²¹ And the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes and brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze shackles. ^(A)And he ground at the mill in the prison.

^4 (A)They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear,^[a] and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.

Nehemiah Stops Oppression of the Poor

5 Now there arose ^(A)a great outcry of the people and of their wives ^(B)against their Jewish brothers. ² For there were those who said, “With our sons and our daughters, we are many. So let us get grain, that we may eat and keep alive.” ³ There were also those who said, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, and our houses to get grain because of the famine.” ⁴ And there were those who said, “We have borrowed money for ^(C)the king's tax on our fields and our vineyards. ⁵ Now ^(D)our flesh is as the flesh of our brothers, our children are as their children. Yet ^(E)we are forcing our sons and our daughters to be slaves, and some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but it is not in our power to help it, for other men have our fields and our vineyards.”

⁵ If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying down under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it; you shall rescue it with him.

⁵ and every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is ^(A)behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the cattle.