Study Desk

that search may be made in the book of the records of your fathers: so you shall find in the book of the records, and know that this city is a rebellious city, and hurtful to kings and provinces, and that they have moved sedition inside the same of old time; for which cause was this city laid waste.

[Then] the king sent an answer to Rehum the chancellor, and to Shimshai the scribe, and to the rest of their companions that dwell in Samaria, and in the rest [of the country] beyond the River: Peace, and so forth.

Now therefore, if it seems 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 made of Cyrus the king to build this house of God at Jerusalem; and let the king send his pleasure to us concerning this matter.

Artaxerxes, king of kings, to Ezra the priest, the scribe of the law of the God of heaven, perfect and so forth.

So we fasted and implored our God for this: and he was entreated of us.

So the priests and the Levites received the weight of the silver and the gold, and the vessels, to bring them to Jerusalem to the house of our God.

For they have taken of their daughters for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy seed have mingled themselves with the peoples of the lands: yes, the hand of the princes and rulers has been chief in this trespass.

shall we again break your commandments, and join in affinity with the peoples that do these disgusting things? wouldn't you be angry with us until you had consumed us, so that there should be no remnant, nor any to escape?

Then Ezra arose, and made the chiefs of the Levitical priests, and all Israel, to swear that they would do according to this word. So they swore.

Then all the assembly answered and said with a loud voice, As you have said concerning us, so must we do.

And the sons of the captivity did so. And Ezra the priest selected men, certain heads of their fathers' [houses], after their fathers' houses, and all of them by their names; and they sat down in the first day of the tenth month to examine the matter.

Then the king said to me, For what do you make request? So I prayed to the God of heaven.

And the king said to me (the queen also sitting by him,) For how long shall your journey be? and when will you return? So it pleased the king to send me; and I set him a time.

So I came to Jerusalem, and was there three days.

Then went I up in the night by the brook, and viewed the wall; and I turned back, and entered by the valley gate, and so returned.

And I told them of the hand of my God which was good on me, as also of the king's words that he had spoken to me. And they said, Let us rise up and build. So they strengthened their hands for the good [work].

So we built the wall; and all the wall was joined together to half [the height] thereof: for the people had a mind to work.

And Judah said, The strength of the bearers of burdens is decayed, and there is much rubbish; so that we are not able to build the wall.

and the builders, every one had his sword girded by his side, and so built. And he that sounded the trumpet was by me.

So we wrought in the work: and half of them held the spears from the rising of the morning until the stars appeared.