Then the heads of the fathers’ households of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and Levites, all those whose spirits God had stirred up, arose to go up and rebuild the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem.

All those who were around them encouraged them with articles of silver, with gold, with goods, with cattle, and with valuable things, in addition to all that was given as a freewill offering.

Now these are the people of the province [of Judah] who came up from the captivity of the exiles, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had deported to Babylon, and who returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each to his own city.

These searched [for their names] among those registered in the genealogies, but they were not found; so they were excluded from the priesthood as [ceremonially] unclean.

Then we asked those elders, ‘Who issued you a decree to rebuild this temple and to finish this structure?’

As for the utensils which are given to you for the service of the house of your God, deliver [those] in full before the God of Jerusalem.

“You, Ezra, are to appoint magistrates and judges in accordance with the wisdom and instruction of your God which is in your hand, so that they may judge all the people who are in the province west of the [Euphrates] River; appoint those who know the laws of your God; and you may teach anyone who does not know them.

These are the heads of their fathers’ households and this is the genealogy of those who went up with me from Babylon in the reign of King Artaxerxes:

For I was ashamed to request troops and horsemen from the king to protect us from the enemy along the way, because we had told the king, “The hand of our God is favorable toward all those who seek Him, but His power and His anger are against all those who abandon (turn away from) Him.”

We set out from the river Ahava on the twelfth [day] of the first month to go to Jerusalem; and the hand of our God was upon us, and He rescued us from the hand of the enemy and those who lay in ambushes along the way.

Also the [former] exiles who had come from the captivity offered burnt offerings to the God of Israel: 12 bulls for all Israel, 96 rams, 77 lambs, and 12 male goats for a sin offering. All this was a burnt offering to the Lord.

Then everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel because of the unfaithfulness of the exiles gathered to me as I sat appalled until the evening offering.

Therefore let us now make a covenant with our God to send away all the [foreign] wives and their children, in accordance with the advice of my lord and of those who tremble [in reverent obedience] at the commandment of our God; and let it be done in accordance with the Law.