Whoever there is among you of his people, may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and take in hand the building of the house of the Lord, the God of Israel; he is the God who is in Jerusalem.

And whoever there may be of the rest of Israel, living in any place, let the men of that place give him help with offerings of silver and gold and goods and beasts, in addition to the offering freely given for the house of God in Jerusalem.

Who went with Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Seraiah, Reelaiah, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispar, Bigvai, Rehum, Baanah, The number of the men of the people of Israel:

So the priests and the Levites and the people and the music-makers and the door-keepers and the Nethinim, took up their places in their towns; even all Israel in their towns.

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

Then Jeshua, the son of Jozadak, and his brothers the priests, and Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, with his brothers, got up and made the altar of the God of Israel for burned offerings as is recorded in the law of Moses, the man of God.

And when the builders put in position the base of the Temple of the Lord, the priests, dressed in their robes, took their places with horns, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with brass instruments, to give praise to the Lord in the way ordered by David, king of Israel.

And they gave praise to the Lord, answering one another in their songs and saying, For he is good, for his mercy to Israel is eternal. And all the people gave a great cry of joy, when they gave praise to the Lord, because the base of the Lord's house was put in place.

Now news came to the haters of Judah and Benjamin that the people who had come back were building a Temple to the Lord, the God of Israel;

But Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the rest of the heads of families in Israel said to them, You have no part with us in the building of a house for our God; we ourselves will do the work together for the Lord, the God of Israel, as Cyrus, king of Persia, has given us orders.

Now the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, the son of Iddo, were preaching to the Jews in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel.

And they made answer to us, saying, We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and we are building the house which was put up in times long past and was designed and made complete by a great king of Israel.

And the responsible men of the Jews went on with their building, and did well, helped by the teaching of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah, the son of Iddo. They went on building till it was complete, in keeping with the word of the God of Israel, and the orders given by Cyrus, and Darius, and Artaxerxes, king of Persia.

And the children of Israel, the priests and the Levites, and the rest of those who had come back, kept the feast of the opening of this house of God with joy.

And they gave as offerings at the opening of this house of God a hundred oxen, two hundred sheep, four hundred lambs; and for a sin-offering for all Israel, twelve he-goats, being the number of the tribes of Israel.

And the children of Israel who had come back kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month.

And the children of Israel, who had come back, and all those who were joined to them, after separating themselves from the evil ways of the people of the land to become the servants of the Lord, the God of Israel, took food together,

And kept the feast of unleavened bread for seven days with joy: for the Lord had made them full of joy, by turning the heart of the king of Assyria to them to give them help in the work of the house of God, the God of Israel.

This Ezra went up from Babylon; and he was a scribe, expert in the law of Moses which the Lord, the God of Israel, had given: and the king, moved by the Lord his God, gave him whatever he made request for.

And some of the children of Israel went up, with some of the priests and the Levites and the music-makers and the door-keepers and the Nethinim, to Jerusalem, in the seventh year of Artaxerxes the king.

For Ezra had given his mind to learning the law of the Lord and doing it, and to teaching his rules and decisions in Israel.

Now this is a copy of the letter which King Artaxerxes gave to Ezra, the priest and the scribe, who put into writing the words of the orders of the Lord, and of his rules for Israel:

And now it is my order that all those of the people of Israel, and their priests and Levites in my kingdom, who are ready and have a desire to go to Jerusalem, are to go with you.

And to take with you the silver and gold freely offered by the king and his wise men to the God of Israel, whose Temple is in Jerusalem,

And has given mercy to me before the king and his government and before all the king's great captains. And I was made strong by the hand of the Lord my God which was on me, and I got together out of Israel chief men to go up with me.

And by the help of our God they got for us Ish-sechel, one of the sons of Mahli, the son of Levi, the son of Israel; and Sherebiah with his sons and brothers, eighteen;

And gave to them by weight the silver and the gold and the vessels, all the offering for the house of our God which the king and his wise men and his captains and all Israel there present had given:

Take care of them and keep them, till you put them on the scales before the chiefs of the priests and the Levites and the chiefs of the families of Israel, in Jerusalem, in the rooms of the house of the Lord.

And those who had been prisoners, who had come back from a strange land, made burned offerings to the God of Israel, twelve oxen for all Israel, ninety-six male sheep, seventy-seven lambs, twelve he-goats for a sin-offering: all this was a burned offering to the Lord.

Now after these things were done, the captains came to me and said, The people of Israel and the priests and Levites have not kept themselves separate from the people of the lands, but have taken part in the disgusting ways of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites.

Then everyone who went in fear of the words of the God of Israel, because of the sin of those who had come back, came together to me; and I kept where I was, overcome with grief, till the evening offering.

O Lord God of Israel, righteousness is yours; we are only a small band which has been kept from death, as at this day: see, we are before you in our sin; for no one may keep his place before you because of this.

Now while Ezra was making his prayer and his statement of wrongdoing, weeping and falling down before the house of God, a very great number of men and women and children out of Israel came together round him: for the people were weeping bitterly.

And Shecaniah, the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, answering, said to Ezra, We have done evil against our God, and have taken as our wives strange women of the peoples of the land: but still there is hope for Israel in this question.

Then Ezra got up, and made the chiefs of the priests and the Levites and all Israel take an oath that they would do this. So they took an oath.

And Ezra the priest got to his feet and said to them, You have done wrong and taken strange women for your wives, so increasing the sin of Israel.

And of Israel, the sons of Parosh, Ramiah and Izziah and Malchijah and Mijamin and Eleazar and Malchijah and Benaiah.