And when the seventh month came, and the children of Israel were in the towns, the people came together like one man to Jerusalem.

And they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of the {families}, and they said to them, "Let us build with you. Like you, we seek your God and have been sacrificing [to him] from the days of Esarhaddon the king of Assyria who brought us up here.

The letter sent to him was written like this: To: King Darius: Greetings!

Blessed be Yahweh, God of our fathers, - who hath put the like of this into the heart of the king, to beautify the house of Yahweh, which is in Jerusalem;

After these things had been done, the leaders approached me and said: “The people of Israel, the priests, and the Levites have not separated themselves from the surrounding peoples whose detestable practices are like those of the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians, and Amorites.

'And after all that hath come upon us for our evil works, and for our great guilt (for Thou, O our God, hast kept back of the rod from our iniquities, and hast given to us an escape like this),