Ezra 4:24-6:5

Contemporary English Version

Work on the Temple Starts Again

²⁴^(A) The Jews were forced to stop work on the temple and were not able to do any more building until the year after Darius became king of Persia.^[a] 5 ¹^(B) Then the Lord God of Israel told the prophets Haggai and Zechariah^[b] to speak in his name to the people of Judah and Jerusalem. And they did. ²^(C) So Zerubbabel the governor and Joshua the priest urged the people to start working on the temple again, and God's prophets encouraged them.

³Governor Tattenai of Western Province and his assistant Shethar Bozenai got together with some of their officials. Then they went to Jerusalem and said to the people, “Who told you to rebuild this temple? ⁴Give us the names of the workers!”

⁵But God was looking after the Jewish leaders. So the governor and his group decided not to make the people stop working on the temple until they could report to Darius and get his advice.

⁶Governor Tattenai, Shethar Bozenai, and their advisors sent a report to Darius, ⁷which said:

King Darius, we wish you the best! ⁸We went to Judah, where the temple of the great God is being built with huge stones and wooden beams set in the walls. Everyone is working hard, and the building is going up quickly.

⁹We asked those in charge to tell us who gave them permission to rebuild the temple. ¹⁰We also asked for the names of their leaders, so that we could write them down for you.

¹¹They claimed to be servants of the God who rules heaven and earth. And they said they were rebuilding the temple that was built many years ago by one of Israel's greatest kings.^[c]

¹²^(D) We were told that their people had made God angry, and he let them be captured by Nebuchadnezzar,^[d] the Babylonian king^[e] who took them away as captives to Babylonia. Nebuchadnezzar tore down their temple, ^13-15^(E) took its gold and silver articles, and put them in the temple of his own god in Babylon.

They also said that during the first year Cyrus was king of Babylonia,^[f] he gave orders for God's temple to be rebuilt in Jerusalem where it had stood before. So Cyrus appointed Sheshbazzar governor of Judah and sent these gold and silver articles for him to put in the temple. ¹⁶Sheshbazzar then went to Jerusalem and laid the foundation for the temple, and the work is still going on.

¹⁷Your Majesty, please order someone to look up the old records in Babylonia and find out if King Cyrus really did give orders to rebuild God's temple in Jerusalem. We will do whatever you think we should.

King Cyrus' Order Is Rediscovered

6 King Darius ordered someone to go through the old records kept in Babylonia. ²Finally, a scroll^[g] was found in Ecbatana, the capital of Media Province, and it said:

This official record will show ³that in the first year Cyrus was king, he gave orders to rebuild God's temple in Jerusalem, so that sacrifices and offerings could be presented there.^[h] It is to be built 27 meters high and 27 meters wide, ⁴with one^[i] row of wooden beams for each three rows of large stones. The royal treasury will pay for everything. ⁵Then the gold and silver things that Nebuchadnezzar took from the temple and brought to Babylonia are to be returned to their proper places.

Footnotes

4.24 year after … king of Persia: 520 b.c.
5.1 Zechariah: Aramaic “Zechariah son of Iddo.”
5.11 one of Israel's greatest kings: Solomon (ruled from about 970 to 931 b.c.).
5.12 Nebuchadnezzar: See the note at 1.7.
5.12 the Babylonian king: Aramaic “the Babylonian king from Chaldea,” but Chaldea is another name for Babylonia.
5.13-15 Cyrus was king of Babylonia: King Cyrus of Persia became king of Babylonia when the Persians conquered the city of Babylon in 539 b.c.
6.2 scroll: A roll of paper or special leather used for writing on.
6.3 so that … there: One possible meaning for the difficult Aramaic text.
6.4 one: One possible meaning for the difficult Aramaic text.