Study Desk

At that time Tatnai, governor of the province Beyond the River, and Shethar-boznai, and their associates, came to them, and said this to them: Who has commanded you to build this house and to complete this structure?

Then we spoke to them in this way, What are they, the names of the men building this building?

But the eye of their God was on the elders of the Jews, and they could not cause them to stop until the matter came to Darius. And then they sent back a letter concerning this.

The copy of the letter which Tatnai, governor of the province Beyond the River, and Shethar-boznai, and his associates the officials who were Beyond the River, sent to Darius the king:

They sent a letter to him, and this was written in it: To Darius the king, all peace.

Let it be known to the king that we went into the province of Judah, to the house of the great God, and it is being built with rolling stones, and timber is being laid in the walls, and thatwork is being done perfectly, and is prosperingin their hands.

Then we asked those elders, saying this to them, Who commanded you to rebuild this house, and to complete this structure?

And we also asked their names in order to inform you so that we might write the names of the men who are at their heads.

And they returned the answer to us this way, saying, We are servants of the God of Heaven and earth. And we are rebuilding the house that was built many years before this, and the great king of Israel built it and finished it.

But because our fathers had provoked to wrath the God of Heaven, He gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, the Chaldean, and he tore down this house, and he exiled its people to Babylon.

But in the first year of Cyrus the king of Babylon, King Cyrus placed an order to build this house of God.

And also the vessels of gold and silver from the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took out of the temple in Jerusalem, and brought them into the temple of Babylon, those Cyrus the king took out of the temple of Babylon, and they were deliveredto one whose name was Sheshbazzar, whom he had made governor.

And he said to him, Take these vessels and go. Deposit them in the temple in Jerusalem, and let the house of God be built on its place.

Then that Sheshbazzar came and laid the foundation of the house of God in Jerusalem. And from then even until now it has been building, but is not finished.

Now, therefore, if it is good to the king, let there be a search made in the king's treasure house which is there at Babylon, whether it is so that a decree was given from Cyrus the king tobuild this house of God at Jerusalem. Andlet the will of the king concerning this be sent to us.