Nehemiah 5:6-13. Nehemiah is very angry when he learns the plight of some of the Jewish people who have lost their fields, homes, and even children due to the interest being charged on their loans. He calls together the nobles and the officials and chastises them. He says we have brought back our people from the various nations to which they were scattered, but you are selling them back into slavery over money. The nobles and officials were silent. Nehemiah continued by telling them that this is very wrong; they should be walking in God's ways, helping to build the people back up. Further, Nehemiah himself and others have lent the people money and given to them freely for their own use, but that is being used instead to enrich these men and enslave the people further. He says they must return the people's vineyards, orchards, houses, money, grain, and wine this very day. The nobles and officials agree to do so and Nehemiah shakes out his lap and says anyone who breaks his promise to do so will be shaken like this from God's house. They all go and do as they promised.

These officials and nobles were profiting off of the people just as God was trying to rebuild Jerusalem. They were directly countering God's will. Now, this had been going on pre-exile, as well, and the ones doing it then would not listen to the prophets even when told to stop. This brought the calamity of the exile upon the entire people. But here we see how chastisement works. Despite the charging of interest being "the way the world works," now that the people have been through exile, the nobles and the officials are chastened enough that when they hear Nehemiah's words they fall silent (I am picturing a light bulb going off over their heads, mixed with a little shame). Then they readily agree to give everything back, and they follow through. This makes no sense from a business point of view, so they probably would not have done this if they had not been through the exile.

God's punishments worked as intended - the exile woke the people up enough to the wrongness of the world and made them be able to listen to, hear, and obey the righteousness of the way of God, even when it hit them in the pocket book.