1 As a result of these events, when Artaxerxes, king of the Persians reigned, came Ezra, son of Seraia, son of Azaria, son of Hilkija, son of Shallum,
2 Son of Tsadok, son of Ahitub, son of Amariah, son of Uzzi, son of Bukki, son of Abishua, son of Phineas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the high priest.
3 This Ezra ascended from Babylon as a skilled scribe in the law of Moses,which was given by the God of Israel;
4 and the king honored him,for having received grace before the Lord in all his requests.
5 He went with him to Jerusalem accompanied by the Israelites,priests, Levites,temple singers, doormen, and temple servants,
6 the seventh year of the reign of Artaxerxes,the fifth month (itwas the seventh year of the king);for they left Babylon at the new moon of the first month and
arrived in Jerusalem at the new moon of the fifth month,by the prosperous journey that the Lord had given them.
7 For Ezra possessed great knowledge, so he omitted nothing of the law of Jehovah or the commandments, but taught all Israel only the
orders and judgments.
8 The following is a copy of King Artaxerxes' written commission that was given to Ezra, a priest and reader of the Lord's law:
9 "King Artaxerxes to Ezra the priest and reader of the lord's law, salvation.
10 In accordance with my gracious decision,I have given the order that those of the Jewish nation and of the priests and Levites and others in our kingdom, those who
freely choose to do so, can go with you to Jerusalem.
11 So let all those who wish to leave with you, as I and the seven friends who are my advisors have decided,
12 that they may examine the affairs in Judea and Jerusalem, according to what is in the law of the Lord,
13 Bring to Jerusalem the gifts for the Lord of Israel that I and my friends have promised,and gather for the Lord in Jerusalem all the gold and silver they have
will be able to find in the land of Babylon,
14 without neglecting what is given by the nation for the temple of its Lord which is in Jerusalem, as well as gold and
money for bulls, rams and lambs and let them go with it,
15 to offer sacrifices on the altar of their Lord who is in Jerusalem.
16 All that you and your loved ones intend to do with gold and silver, do it according to the will of your God;
17 deliver the sacred vessels of Jehovah that are given to you for the use of your God's temple in Jerusalem.
18 And any other expenses necessary for the temple of your God, you will be able to get it from the royal treasury.
19 "I, King Artaxerxes, have commanded the treasurers of Syria and Phoenicia that whatever Ezra, priest and reader of the law of the Most High God desires, they
will take care to give it to him,
20 up to a hundred talents of silver,and likewise up to a hundred corns of wheat,a hundred baths of wine and salt in abundance.
21 That all that is prescribed in the law of God be scrupulously fulfilled for the Most High God, so that anger does not fall on the king's kingdom.
and his sons.
22 You are also informed that no tribute or other tax shall be imposed on priests or Levites or singers of the temple or doormen or servants of the
temple or people employed in this temple, and that no one has the power to impose a tax on them.
23 "And you,Ezra, according to the wisdom of God, appoints judges and judges to judge all those who know the law of your God, in all Syria and the
Phoenicia; and you will teach it to those who do not know it.
24 All those who transgress the law of your God or the law of the kingdom shall be severely punished, either by death, or by another penalty, or by a fine, or by a
prison sentence."
25 The scribe Ezra says: "Blessed be the Lord alone, who has put this in the heart of the king, to glorify his house which is in Jerusalem,
26 and who honored me in the eyes of the king and his advisers and all his friends and nobles.
27 I was encouraged by the help of the Lord my God, and I gathered men from Israel to ascend with me."
28 Here are the chiefs, according to their ancestral houses and groups, who ascended with me from Babylon, during the reign of King Artaxerxes:
29 Descendants of Phineas, Gershom. Descendants of Ithamar, Gamaël. Descendants of David, Hattush son of Shecaniah.
30 Descendants of Parosh, Zechariah, and with him one hundred and fifty enlisted men.
31 Descendants of Pahath-moab, Eliehoenai, son of Zerahia, and with him two hundred men.
32 Descendants of Zattu, Shecania, son of Jahaziel, and with him three hundred men. Descendants of Adin, Obed, son of Jonathan, and with him two hundred
fifty men.
33 Descendants of Elam, Jeshaya, son of Gotholia, and with him seventymen.
34 Descendants of Shephatia, Zeraja, son of Michael, and with him seventymen.
35 of the descendants35 of the descendants of Joab, Obadias, son of Jehiel, and with him two hundred and twelve men.
36 Descendants of Bani, Shelomith, son of Josiphia,and with him one hundred and sixty men.
37 Of bebai's descendants, Zechariah, son of Bebai, and with him twenty-eight men.
38 Descendants of Azgad, Johanan, son of Hakkatan, and with him one hundred and ten men.
39 Of the descendants of Adonikam, the last, they were called Eliphelet, Jeuel and Shemaiah, and with them seventy men.
40 Descendants of Bigvaï, Uthaï, son of Istalcurus, andwith him seventymen.
41 I gathered them at the river called Theras, and we camped there for three days, and I inspected them.
42 When I found no descendants of the priests or Levites,
43 I sent a message to Eliezar, Iduel, Maasmas,
44 Elnathan, Shemaiah, Jarib, Nathan, Elnathan, Zechariah and Meshullam, who were leaders and intelligent men;
45 I told them to go to Iddo, which was the capital of the treasure place,
46 and ordered them to tell Iddo, his family, and the treasurers of this place to send us men to serve as priests in the house of our
Lord.
47 And by the mighty hand of our Lord, they have brought us competent men of the descendants of Mahli, son of Levi, son of Israel, namely Sherebia
with his descendants and parents, eighteen;
48 also Haschabia and Annunus and his brother Jeshaya, descendants of Hanania and their descendants, twenty men;
49 and among the servants of the temple that David and the chiefs had given for the service of the Levites, two hundred and twenty servants of the temple; the list of all
their names were reported.
50 There I proclaimed a fast for the young men before our Lord, to seek from Him a prosperous journey for ourselves and for our children and cattle.
who was with us.
51 For I was ashamed to ask the king for infantry, cavalry and an escort to protect us from our opponents.
52 because we had said to the king, "The power of our Lord will be with those who seek Him, and will sustain them in everything.
53 And we prayed again to our Lord about these things, and we found him very merciful.
54 Then I set apart twelve of the leaders of the priests, Sherebia and Haschabia, and ten of their parents with them;
55 and I weighed to them the silver and gold and the sacred vessels of the house of our Lord, that the king himself and his advisors and the nobles and all Israel
had given.
56 I weighed and gave them six hundred and fifty silver talents, and silver vases worth a hundred talents, and a hundred talents of gold,
57 and twenty gold cups, and twelve bronze vases of a fine bronze that shone like gold.
58 And I said to them, "You are holy to the Lord, and the vessels are holy, and silver and gold are dedicated to the Lord, the Eternal of our ancestors.
59 Be vigilant and on guard until you give them to the chiefs of the priests and Levites, and to the heads of the ancestral houses of Israel, to
Jerusalem, in the rooms of the house of our Lord. »
60 The priests and Levites, who took the silver, gold, and utensils that were in Jerusalem, took them to the temple of Jehovah.
61 We left the the River Theras on the twelfth day of the first month; and we arrived in Jerusalem by the mighty hand of our Lord, who was upon
us; he delivered us from every enemy on the way, and so we arrived in Jerusalem.
62 When we had been there for three days, silver and gold were weighed and handed over in the house of our Lord to the priest Meremoth, son of Uriah;
63 with him was Eleazar, son of Phineae , and with them Jozabad, son of Jeshua, and Moeth, son of Binnui, the Levites.
64 The whole thing was counted and weighed, and the weight of everything was recorded at that time.
65 And those who had returned from exile offered as a sacrifice to Jehovah, the God of Israel, twelve bulls for all Israel, ninety-six rams,
66 seventy-two lambs, and as a thank you offering twelve goats, all as a sacrifice to the Lord.
67 They handed over the king's orders to the royal stewards and the governors of Coelesyria and Phoenicia; and these officials honored the people and the temple.
of the Lord.
68 After these things had been done, the chiefs came to me and said:
69 "The people of Israel and the chiefs, priests and Levites did not remove from themselves the foreign peoples of the land and their defilements, the Canaanites,
the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Edomites.
70 For they and their descendants married the daughters of this people, and the holy race mingled with the foreign peoples of the land; and since the beginning of this
Business, chiefs and nobles participated in this iniquity. »
71 As soon as I heard these things, I tore my clothes and my holy coat, and I pulled the hair out of my head and beard, and sat down.
in anxiety and pain.
72 And all those who were moved to the word72 And all those who were moved to the word of the Lord of Israel gathered around me, while I
wept for this iniquity, and I sat in pain until the evening sacrifice.
73 Then I rose from my fast, my clothes and my holy coat torn, and Knelt down and stretched out my hands to the Lord.
74 I said, "Lord, I am ashamed and confused before your face.
75 For our sins have risen higher than our heads, and our faults have risen to heaven
76 since the time of our ancestors, and we are in a great sin to this day.
77 Because of our sins and the sins of our ancestors, we have been delivered with our parents and kings and priests to the kings of the earth, to the sword, to exile.
and looting, in shame to this day.
78 And now, to a certain extent, mercy has come to us from you, O Lord, to leave us a root and a name in your holy place,
79 and to enlighten us in the house of the Lord our God, and to give us food in the time of our bondage.
80 Even in our slavery ,we were not abandoned by our Lord, but he put us in favor with the kings of the Persians, so that they gave us
given food
81 and glorified the temple of our Lord, and raised Zion from desolation, to give us a fortress in Judea and Jerusalem.
82 "And now, Lord, what shall we say, when we have these things? For we have transgressed your commandments which you have given by your servants the
prophets, saying:
83 "The country you enter to take possession is a country soiled with the filth of the foreigners of the country, and they have filled it with their filth.
84 Therefore do not give your daughters in marriage to their descendants, and do not take their daughters for your descendants;
85 never seeks to have peace with them, so that you are strong and eat the good things of the country and leave it as a legacy to your children for
always.'
86 And everything that has happened to us has happened because of our evil deeds and great sins. For you, Lord, have risen the burden of our sins
87 and gave us such a root; but we have turned around to transgress your law by mingling with the impurity of the peoples of the land.
88 Haven't you been angry enough at us to destroy us without leaving a root, seed or name?
89 Lord of Israel, you are faithful; for we are left as a root to this day.
90 See,we are now before you in our iniquities; for we can no longer stand in your presence because of these things."
91 While Ezra prayed and confessed, weeping and lying on the ground in front of the temple, he gathered around him a very large crowd of men, women
and young people of Jerusalem; for there were great tears among the multitude.
92 Then Shecania, son of Jehiel, one of the men of Israel, cried out and said to Ezra, "We have sinned against the Lord, and we have married foreign women.
the peoples of the country; but even now there is hope for Israel.
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1 Then Ezra left and went from the temple courtyard to the room of Johanan, son of Eliashib,
2 and spent the night there; and he did not eat bread or drink water, for he mourned the great iniquities of the multitude.
3 And a proclamation was made throughout Judea and in Jerusalem to all those who had returned from exile, that they would meet in Jerusalem,
4 and that if someone did not meet there within two or three days, in accordance with the decision of the former rulers, their cattle would be seized for the
sacrifice and the men themselves expelled from the multitude of those who had returned from captivity.
5 Then the men of the tribe of Judah and Benjamin gathered in Jerusalem within three days; it was the ninth month, the twentieth day of the month.
6 The whole multitude sat in the open square in front of the temple, shivering because of the bad weather that reigned.
7 Ezra stood up and said to them, "You have broken the law and married foreign women, and so you have increased the sin of Israel.
8 Now confess and glorify the Lord, the God of our fathers,
9 And do his will; separate yourself from the peoples of the country and from your foreign women.
10 Then the whole multitude shouted and said in a loud voice, "We will do what you said.
11 But the multitude is great and it's winter, and we can't stand in the open air. It is not a work we can do in a day or two,
for we have sinned too much in these things.
12 Let the leaders of the multitude therefore remain, and let all those of our colonies who have foreign women come at the fixed time,
13 with the elders and judges of each place, until we are freed from the Lord's wrath on this matter.
14 Jonathan, son of Asahel, and
Jahzeiah, son of Tikvah, dealt with the case in these terms, and Meshullam, Levi, and Shabbathai served as judges.
15 And those who had returned from exile were acting according to all this.
16 Ezra the priest chose the main men of their ancestral houses, all by name; and at the new moon of the tenth month they began
their sessions to investigate the matter.
17 And the affairs of men who had foreign women ended with the new moon of the first month.
18 Among the priests, those who were brought and found for foreign women were:
19 descendants of Jeshua, son of Jozadak and his family, Maaseiah, Eliezar, Jarib and Jodan.
20 They pledged to repudiate their wives and offer rams in atonement for their mistake.
21 Descendants of Immer: Hanani and Zebadiah and Maaseiah and Shemaiah and Jehiel and Azariah.
22 Of Pashhur's descendants: Elioenai, Maaseiah, Ishmael, and Nathanael, and Gedaliah, and Salthas.
23 And of the Levites: Jozabad and Shimei and Kelaja,who was Kelita, and Pethahiah and Judah and Jonah.
24 Among the singers of the temple: Eliashib and Zaccur.
25 Among the goalkeepers: Shallum and Telem.
26 Of Israel: descendants of Parosh: Ramiah, Izziah, Malchijah, Mijamin, and Eleazar, and Asibias, and Benaja.
27 Of Elam's descendants: Mattania and Zechariah, Jezrielus and Abdi, and Jeremoth and Elijah.
28 Descendants of Zamoth: Eliadas, Eliashib, Othonia, Jeremoth, and Zabad and Zerdaiah.
29 Descendants of Bebai: Johanan and Hanania and Zabbai and Emathis.
30 Of Mani's descendants: Olamus, Mamuchus, Adaiah, Jashub, and Sheal and Jeremoth.
31 Of Addi's descendants: Naathus and Moossias, Laccunus and Naidus,and Bescaspasmys and Sesthel, and Belnuus and Manasseas.
32 Descendants of Annan, Elionas and Asaias and Melchias and Sabbaias and Simon Chosamaeus.
33 Descendants of Hashum: Mattai and Mattattah and Zabad and Eliphelet and Manasseh and Shimei.
34 Of Bani's descendants: Jeremai, Mondius, Maerus,Joel, Mamdai and Bedeiah and Vaniah, Carabasion and Eliashib and Mamitanemus, Eliasis, Binnui, Elialis, Shimei,
Shelemiah, Nethaniah. Descendants of Ezora: Shashai, Azarel, Azael, Samatus, Zambris, Joseph.
35 Descendants of Nooma: Mazitias, Zabad, Iddo, Joel, Benaja.
36 All of them had married strangers and set them aside with their children.
37 The priests, Levites, and Israelites settled in Jerusalem and the land. At the new moon of the seventh month, when the people of Israel
was in his colonies,
38 the whole multitude gathered by mutual agreement in the open square in front of the eastern door of the temple;
39 they told Ezra, the high priest and reader, to bring the law of Moses that had been given by the Lord God of Israel.
40 Ezra, the high priest, brought the law to all the multitude, men and women, and to all priests to hear the law,to the new moon of the
seventh month.
41 He read aloud in the open square in front of the temple gate from early morning until noon, in the presence of men and women; and all the multitude
paid attention to the law.42 Ezra the priest and reader of the law stood by
42 Ezra, priest and reader of the law, stood on the wooden platform that had been prepared;
43 and next to him stood to his right Mattathia, Shema, Ananias, Azaria, Uriah, Ezechias and Baalsamus,
44 and to his left Pedaya, Michael, Malchija, Lothasubus, Nabariah and Zechariah.
45 Then Ezra took the book of the law in the eyes of the multitude, for it had the place of honor before all.
46 When he opened the law, they all stood. And Ezra blesses the Lord God the Most High, the God of hosts, the Almighty,
47 and the multitude replied, "Amen. They raised their hands, fell to the ground, and worshipped the Lord.
48 Jeshua and Anniuth and Sherebiah, Jadinus, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maiannas and Kelita, Azariah and Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, the Levites, taught the law of the
Lord, explaining at the same time what was read.
49 Then Attharates said to Ezra, the high priest and reader, and to the Levites who taught the multitude, and all:
50 "This day is holy to the Lord" - now they were all crying when they heard the law -
51"Go, eat the fat and drink the sweet, and send portions to those who do not have any;
52 for the day is holy to the Lord; and do not afflict you, for the Lord will exalt you."
53 The Levites ordered all the people, saying, "This day is holy; don't grieve. »
54 Then they all went away to eat and drink and entertain themselves, and to give portions to those who did not have them, and to rejoice;
55 because they were inspired by the words they had been taught. And they got together.
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