14 Remember me, my God, concerning this, and do not wipe out my loyal acts which I have done in the house of my God and in his service.
15 In those days I saw in Judah people treading the wine press on the Sabbath, bringing in heaps of grain and loading them on donkeys along with wine, grapes and figs, and every kind of burden and bringing it all to Jerusalem on the day of the Sabbath. And I warned them at that time against selling food.
16 Tyrian men who lived in Jerusalem brought fish and every kind of merchandise and sold it on the Sabbath to the descendants of Judah and in Jerusalem.
17 So I quarreled with the nobles of Judah and said to them, “What is this evil thing that you are doing, profaning the day of the Sabbath?
18 Did not your ancestors do this also, and our God brought on us all of this disaster and on this city too? Now you are adding fierce wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath!”
19 So when it became dark at the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath, I commanded that the doors be shut and said that they should not be opened until after the Sabbath. And I appointed some of my young men over the gates to prevent any goods being brought in on the day of the Sabbath.
20 So the merchants and the sellers of merchandise spent the night outside of Jerusalem once or twice.