"If you rebel, I will scatter you among the nations but if you return to me, keeping my commands and doing them, even if your exiled people are in the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place where I have chosen to establish my Name.'

Then I was filled with fear. I replied to the king, "May the king live forever. Why shouldn't I be troubled, since the city where my ancestral sepulchers are located lies waste, with its gates burned by fire?"

So I prayed to the God of heaven and I replied to the king, "If it seems good to you, and if your servant has found favor with you, would you send me to Judah, to the city where my ancestral sepulchers are located, so I can rebuild it?"

The local officials did not know where I had gone or what I had done I informed neither the Judeans, nor the priests, nor the nobles, nor the officials, nor any of the rest who would be doing the work.

We also determined to present the first fruits of our ground grain, our offerings, the fruit of all kinds of trees, wines, and oil to the priests, to the chambers of the Temple of our God, and the tithes of our land to the descendants of Levi, so those descendants of Levi could collect the tithes in all the towns where we worked:

For the Israelis and the descendants of Levi will bring the grain offering, the wine, and the oil into the chambers where the vessels of the sanctuary are, along with the ministering priests, the porters, and the singers. We will not neglect the Temple of our God."

At the Fountain Gate, which stood opposite them, they ascended the stairs of the City of David where the wall rose above the house of David east of the Water Gate.

had prepared a great chamber for him, in the place where they used to place the grain offerings, incense, and vessels, along with the tithes of the grain, the new wine, and the oil that was mandated for the descendants of Levi, the singers, the gate keepers, and the priests' offerings.