² “This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: The people are saying, ‘The time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord.’”

¹⁰ Then the people of Judah began to complain, “The workers are getting tired, and there is so much rubble to be moved. We will never be able to build the wall by ourselves.”

²³ When this letter from King Artaxerxes was read to Rehum, Shimshai, and their colleagues, they hurried to Jerusalem. Then, with a show of strength, they forced the Jews to stop building.

The Rebuilding Resumes

²⁴ So the work on the Temple of God in Jerusalem had stopped, and it remained at a standstill until the second year of the reign of King Darius of Persia.^[a]

5 At that time the prophets Haggai and Zechariah son of Iddo prophesied to the Jews in Judah and Jerusalem. They prophesied in the name of the God of Israel who was over them. ² Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and Jeshua son of Jehozadak^[b] responded by starting again to rebuild the Temple of God in Jerusalem. And the prophets of God were with them and helped them.

¹⁰ Whatever you do, do well. For when you go to the grave,^[a] there will be no work or planning or knowledge or wisdom.

³¹ But the other men who had explored the land with him disagreed. “We can’t go up against them! They are stronger than we are!”