Study Desk

Artachshasta, king of kings, to Ezra the Kohen, the Sofer of the law of the God of heaven, perfect and so forth.

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

So the Kohanim and the Levites received the weight of the silver and the gold, and the vessels, to bring them to Yerushalayim 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 mixed 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 mitzvot, and join in affinity with the peoples that do these abominations? would not you be angry with us until you had consumed us, so that there should be no remnant, nor any to escape?

Then arose Ezra, and made the chiefs of the Kohanim, the Levites, and all Yisra'el, to swear that they would do according to this word. So they swore.

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

The children of the captivity did so. Ezra the Kohen, [with] certain heads of fathers' [houses], after their fathers' houses, and all of them by their names, were set apart; 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.

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 Yerushalayim, 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.

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. 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] of it: for the people had a mind to work.

Yehudah 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, everyone had his sword girded by his side, and so built. He who sounded the shofar was by me.

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

So neither I, nor my brothers, nor my servants, nor the men of the guard who followed me, none of us put off our clothes, everyone [went with] his weapon [to] the water.

Then said they, We will restore them, and will require nothing of them; so will we do, even as you say. Then I called the Kohanim, and took an oath of them, that they would do according to this promise.

Also I shook out my lap, and said, So God shake out every man from his house, and from his labor, that doesn't perform this promise; even thus be he shaken out, and emptied. All the assembly said, Amein, and praised the LORD. The people did according to this promise.