21Then I gave orders for a time of going without food, there by the river Ahava, so that we might make ourselves low before our God in prayer, requesting from him a straight way for us and for our little ones and for all our substance.
22For I would not, for shame, make request to the king for a band of armed men and horsemen to give us help against those who might make attacks on us on the way: for we had said to the king, The hand of our God is on his servants for good, but his power and his wrath are against all those who are turned away from him.
23So we went without food, requesting our God for this: and his ear was open to our prayer.
24So I put on one side twelve of the chiefs of the priests, Sherebiah, Hashabiah, and ten of their brothers with them,
25And gave to them by weight the silver and the gold and the vessels, all the offering for the house of our God which the king and his wise men and his captains and all Israel there present had given:
26Measuring into their hands six hundred and fifty talents of silver, and silver vessels, a hundred talents' weight, and a hundred talents of gold,
27And twenty gold basins, of a thousand darics, and two vessels of the best bright brass, equal in value to gold.
