¹¹ This is a copy of the letter that King Artaxerxes gave to Ezra the priest, the scribe, a man learned in matters of the commandments of the Lord and his statutes for Israel:^[a]

Traditions and Commandments

7 ^(A)Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes ^(B)who had come from Jerusalem, ² they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were ^(C)defiled, that is, unwashed. ³ (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly,^[a] holding to ^(D)the tradition of ^(E)the elders, ⁴ and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash.^[b] And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as ^(F)the washing of ^(G)cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.^[c]) ⁵ And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to ^(H)the tradition of ^(I)the elders, ^(J)but eat with ^(K)defiled hands?” ⁶ And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you ^(L)hypocrites, as it is written,

⁸ You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”

⁹ And he said to them, “You have a fine way of ^(O)rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! ¹⁰ For Moses said, ^(P)‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ^(Q)‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ ¹¹ But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban”’ (that is, given to God)^[d]— ¹² then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, ¹³ thus ^(R)making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”

¹³ “But woe ^(A)to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you ^(B)shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you ^(C)neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.^[a]

^2 (A)“The scribes and the Pharisees ^(B)sit on Moses' seat,

⁶ this Ezra went up from Babylonia. He was a scribe ^(A)skilled in the Law of Moses that the Lord, the God of Israel, had given, and the king granted him all that he asked, ^(B)for the hand of the Lord his God was on him.

Tattenai's Letter to King Darius

⁶ This is a copy of the letter that ^(A)Tattenai the governor of the province Beyond the River and Shethar-bozenai and his associates, the ^(B)governors who were in the province Beyond the River, sent to Darius the king.

¹¹ (This is a copy of the letter that they sent.) “To Artaxerxes the king: Your servants, the men of the province Beyond the River, send greeting. And now