⁹ Within the three days, all the men of Judah and Benjamin^(A) had gathered in Jerusalem. And on the twentieth day of the ninth month, all the people were sitting in the square before the house of God, greatly distressed by the occasion and because of the rain.

¹⁷ Is it not wheat harvest^(A) now? I will call^(B) on the Lord to send thunder^(C) and rain.^(D) And you will realize what an evil^(E) thing you did in the eyes of the Lord when you asked for a king.”

¹⁸ Then Samuel called on the Lord,^(F) and that same day the Lord sent thunder and rain. So all the people stood in awe^(G) of the Lord and of Samuel.

¹⁶ She was taken to King Xerxes in the royal residence in the tenth month, the month of Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign.

⁸ Ezra arrived in Jerusalem in the fifth month of the seventh year of the king. ⁹ He had begun his journey from Babylon on the first day of the first month, and he arrived in Jerusalem on the first day of the fifth month, for the gracious hand of his God was on him.^(A)