I found a register of the original inhabitants in which there was recorded a list of descendants of the province of Judah who returned from captivity, from those who had been exiled by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. They had come back to Jerusalem and to Judah, each one to his town.

During all of this time, I was not in Jerusalem, because I had returned to the king in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes, king of Babylon. After a while I obtained permission from the king