Ezra 5-6

Common English Bible

Work on God’s house continues

5 Then the prophet Haggai and the prophet Zechariah, Iddo’s son, prophesied to the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of Israel’s God who was over them. ²Subsequently, Zerubbabel, Shealtiel’s son, and Jeshua, Jozadak’s son, began to rebuild God’s house in Jerusalem. God’s prophets were with them, helping them.

³At the same time, Tattenai, the governor of the province Beyond the River, and Shethar-bozenai and their colleagues came to them and spoke to them, asking, “Who authorized you to build this house and finish preparing^[a] this building material?”^[b] ⁴They^[c] also asked them, “What are the names of the people who are building this building?” ⁵But their God looked after the elders of the Jews, and they didn’t stop them until a report reached Darius and a letter with his response had arrived.

Writing to King Darius

⁶This is a copy of the letter that Tattenai, the governor of the province Beyond the River, and Shethar-bozenai and his colleagues the officials who were in the province Beyond the River sent to King Darius. ⁷In the message they sent him, the following was written:

To King Darius, all peace! ⁸Let the king know that we went to the province of Judah, to the house of the great God. It is being built with dressed stone and with timber set into the walls. This work makes good progress and prospers in their hands. ⁹We asked those elders, “Who authorized you to build this house and to complete the preparation of this material?” ¹⁰We also asked them their names so that we could write down the names of the leaders for your information.

¹¹This was their reply to us: “We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth. We are rebuilding the house that was built many years ago, which a great king of Israel built and completed. ¹²But because our ancestors angered the God of heaven, he gave them over into the power of Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar, the Chaldean, who destroyed this house and deported the people to Babylonia. ¹³However, in the first year of his rule, Babylon’s King Cyrus issued a decree to rebuild this house of God. ¹⁴King Cyrus also took the gold and silver equipment from God’s house out of the temple in Babylon (the ones that Nebuchadnezzar took from the temple in Jerusalem and placed in the temple in Babylon) and gave them to a man named Sheshbazzar, whom he had appointed governor. ¹⁵Cyrus said to him, ‘Take this equipment and go and put it in Jerusalem’s temple, and let God’s house be rebuilt on its original site.’ ¹⁶Then Sheshbazzar came and laid the foundations of God’s house in Jerusalem. From then until now the rebuilding work has continued but is not yet complete.”

¹⁷And now, if it seems good to the king, may a search be made in the royal archives in Babylon to see if King Cyrus had issued a decree to rebuild this house of God in Jerusalem. Then may the king be pleased to send us his decision about this matter.

Darius responds

6 Then King Darius made a decree, and they searched the archives where the documents were stored in Babylon. ²But a scroll was found in Ecbatana, the capital of the province of Media, on which was written the following:

A memorandum— ³In the first year of his rule, King Cyrus made a decree: Concerning God’s house in Jerusalem: Let the house at the place where they offered sacrifices be rebuilt and let its foundations be retained. Its height will be ninety feet and its width ninety feet, ⁴with three layers of dressed stones and one^[d] layer of timber. The cost will be paid from the royal treasury. ⁵In addition, the gold and silver equipment from God’s house, which Nebuchadnezzar took out of the temple in Jerusalem and brought to Babylon, is to be restored, that is, brought back to Jerusalem and put in their proper place in God’s house.

⁶Now you, Tattenai, governor of the province Beyond the River, Shethar-bozenai, and you, their colleagues, the officials in the province Beyond the River, keep away! ⁷Leave the work on this house of God alone. Let the governor of the Jews and the elders of the Jews rebuild this house of God on its original site.

⁸I also issue a decree about what you should do to help these elders of the Jews as they rebuild this house of God: The total cost is to be paid to these people, and without delay, from the royal revenue that is made up of the tribute of the province Beyond the River. ⁹And whatever is needed—young bulls, rams, or sheep for entirely burned offerings to the God of heaven, wheat, salt, wine, or oil, as requested by the priests in Jerusalem—let that be given to them day by day without fail ¹⁰so that they may offer pleasing sacrifices to the God of heaven and pray for the lives of the king and his sons.

¹¹I also decree that if anyone disobeys this edict, a beam is to be pulled out of the house of the guilty party, and the guilty party will then be impaled upon it. The house will be turned into a trash heap.

¹²May the God who has established his name there overthrow any king or people who try to change this order or to destroy God’s house in Jerusalem. I, Darius, have decreed it; let it be done with all diligence.

God’s house is completed and dedicated

¹³Then Tattenai, the governor of the province Beyond the River, Shethar-bozenai, and their colleagues carried out the order of King Darius with all diligence. ¹⁴So the elders of the Jews built and prospered because of the prophesying of the prophet Haggai and Zechariah, Iddo’s son. They finished building by the command of Israel’s God and of Cyrus, Darius, and King Artaxerxes of Persia. ¹⁵This house was completed on the third day of the month of Adar,^[e] in the sixth year of the rule of King Darius.

¹⁶Then the Israelites, the priests and the Levites, and the rest of the returned exiles joyfully celebrated the dedication of this house of God. ¹⁷At the dedication of this house of God, they offered one hundred bulls, two hundred rams, four hundred lambs, and as a purification offering for all Israel, twelve male goats, according to the number of the tribes of Israel. ¹⁸They set the priests in their divisions and the Levites in their sections for the service of God in Jerusalem, as it is written in the scroll from Moses.

¹⁹^[f] On the fourteenth day of the first month,^[g] the returned exiles celebrated the Passover. ²⁰All of the priests and the Levites had purified themselves; all of them were clean. They slaughtered the Passover animals for all the returned exiles, their fellow priests, and themselves. ²¹The Israelites who had returned from exile, together with all those who had joined them by separating themselves from the pollutions of the nations of the land to worship the Lord, the God of Israel, ate the Passover meal.^[h]

²²They also joyfully celebrated the Festival of Unleavened Bread for seven days, because the Lord had made them joyful by changing the attitude of the king of Assyria toward them so that he assisted them in the work on the house of God, the God of Israel.