Ezra 4:1-5 - Resistance To Rebuilding The House Of God

¹ Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of the captivity were building a temple to the LORD, the God of Israel; ² then they drew near to Zerubbabel, and to the heads of ancestral houses, and said to them, "Let us build with you; for we seek your God, as you do; and we sacrifice to him since the days of Esar Haddon king of Assyria, who brought us up here."

³ But Zerubbabel, and Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of ancestral houses of Israel, said to them, "You have nothing to do with us in building a house to our God; but we ourselves together 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 weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building, ⁵ and hired counselors against them, to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia.