He feels that all the trouble that has come upon his nation has been richly deserved, so he begins with a humble confession of sin.
'Let Thine ear now be attentive, and Thine eyes open, that Thou mayest hear the prayer of Thy servant, which I pray before Thee now, day and night, for the children of Israel Thy servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against Thee.' And then, coming nearer home, he adds, 'both I and my father's house have sinned.' Was it some special sin which he confessed before God then?
Can his sin, and the sin of his father's house, have been the refusing twelve years ago to leave home and comforts behind them, and to return with Ezra to Jerusalem?
Then Nehemiah pleads God's promises to His people in time past, and ends by definitely stating his own special need and request (Neh.i.

8-11).
By day and by night Nehemiah prays, and nearly four months go by before he does anything further.
The next step was not an easy one.

He had determined to speak to the great Persian monarch--to bring before him the desolate condition of Jerusalem, and to ask for leave of absence from the court at Shushan, in order that he might go to Jerusalem, and do all in his power to restore it to something of its former grandeur.
It is not surprising that Nehemiah dreaded this next step.

The Persian kings had a great objection to being asked a favour.

Xerxes, the husband of Queen Esther, when on his way to Greece with his enormous army, passed through Lydia in Asia Minor.