²⁸ and ^(A)has extended favor to me before the king and his counselors and before all the king’s mighty officials. So I was strengthened according to ^(B)the hand of the Lord my God that was upon me, and I gathered ^[a]leading men from Israel to go up with me.

^9 (A)For we are slaves; yet in our bondage our God has not abandoned us, but ^(B)has extended favor to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to give us reviving to erect the house of our God, to restore its ruins, and to give us a wall in Judah and Jerusalem.