⁸ Rehum the chief deputy and Shimshai the scribe^(A) wrote a letter to King Artaxerxes concerning Jerusalem as follows:

⁹ From Rehum^[a] the chief deputy, Shimshai the scribe, and the rest of their colleagues—the judges and magistrates^[b] from Tripolis, Persia, Erech, Babylon, Susa^(B) (that is, the people of Elam),^{[c] 10} and the rest of the peoples whom the great and illustrious Ashurbanipal^[d] deported and settled in the cities of Samaria^(C) and the region west of the Euphrates River.^(D)

Artaxerxes’s Reply

¹⁷ The king sent a reply to his chief deputy Rehum, Shimshai the scribe, and the rest of their colleagues living in Samaria and elsewhere in the region west of the Euphrates River:

Greetings.