Ezra 4:1-7
Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition
Resistance to Rebuilding the Temple
4 Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the returned exiles were building a temple to the Lord, the God of Israel, 2 they approached Zerub′babel and the heads of fathers’ houses and said to them, “Let us build with you; for we worship your God as you do, and we have been sacrificing to him ever since the days of E′sar-had′don king of Assyria who brought us here.” 3 But Zerub′babel, Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of fathers’ houses in Israel said to them, “You have nothing to do with us in building a house to our God; but we alone will build to the Lord, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us.”
4 Then the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah, and made them afraid to build,[a] 5 and hired counselors against them to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Dari′us king of Persia.
Rebuilding of Jerusalem Opposed
6 And in the reign of Ahasu-e′rus, in the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem.
7 And in the days of Ar-ta-xerx′es, Bishlam and Mith′redath and Tab′e-el and the rest of their associates wrote to Ar-ta-xerx′es king of Persia; the letter was written in Aramaic and translated.[b]
Read full chapterFootnotes
- 4.4 Understandably, the people who had occupied the land in the absence of the exiles now resented their return and, especially, the building of the temple.
- Ezra 4:7 Heb adds in Aramaic, indicating that 4.8–6.18 is in Aramaic. Another interpretation is The letter was written in the Aramaic script and set forth in the Aramaic language
The Revised Standard Version of the Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1965, 1966 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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