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  • Psalm 89:1View Full Chapter

    Psalm 89

    A maskil of Ethan the Ezrahite.

    89 I will sing of the Lord’s loyal love forever.
        I will proclaim your faithfulness
        with my own mouth
        from one generation to the next.

  • 1 Esdras 8:1View Full Chapter

    Ezra leads more exiles out of Babylon

    Sometime later, during Artaxerxes’ rule as the king of the Persians, Ezra arrived. He was the son of Seraiah son of Azariah son of Hilkiah son of Shallum

  • 1 Esdras 8:3View Full Chapter

    Ezra came up from Babylon as a legal expert well trained in the Law from Moses, a gift from the God of Israel.

  • 1 Esdras 8:7View Full Chapter

    Ezra had such a great understanding that he left out nothing from the Law that came from the Lord or the commandments, but he taught Israel all the regulations and decisions.

  • 1 Esdras 8:8View Full Chapter

    The following is a copy of the written decree from King Artaxerxes that he gave to Ezra the priest and reader of the Law from the Lord:

  • 1 Esdras 8:9View Full Chapter

    King Artaxerxes to Ezra the priest and reader of the Law from the Lord.

    Greetings.

  • 1 Esdras 8:19View Full Chapter

    19 I, King Artaxerxes, have commanded the treasurers of Syria and Phoenicia so that whatever Ezra the priest and reader of the Law of the Most High God sends for, they should give to him completely, up to 5,700 pounds of silver,

  • 1 Esdras 8:23View Full Chapter

    23 You, Ezra, according to God’s wisdom, should appoint judges and justices to have jurisdiction over all those who know the Law from your God, throughout all Syria and Phoenicia. You should teach it to those who don’t know it.

  • 1 Esdras 8:88View Full Chapter

    88 While Ezra was praying and offering up his confession, weeping in the dust before the temple, a very large crowd of men, women, and youth from Jerusalem gathered around him. There was great weeping among the people.

  • 1 Esdras 8:89View Full Chapter

    89 Then Shecaniah, Jehiel’s son, one of the men of Israel, shouted to Ezra, “We have sinned against the Lord, and we have married foreign women from the neighboring peoples. Yet there is hope for Israel.

  • Ezra 1View Full Chapter

    Permission to return to Jerusalem

    In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia’s rule, to fulfill the Lord’s word spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Persia’s King Cyrus. The king issued a proclamation throughout his kingdom (it was also in writing) that stated:

    Persia’s King Cyrus says: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth. He has commanded me to build him a house at Jerusalem in Judah. If there are any of you who are from his people, may their God be with them! They may go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the house of the Lord, the God of Israel—he is the God who is in Jerusalem. And as for all those who remain in the various places where they are living, let the people of those places supply them with silver and gold, and with goods and livestock, together with spontaneous gifts for God’s house in Jerusalem.

    Preparing to return

    Then the heads of the families of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and the Levites—everyone whose spirit God had stirred up—got ready to go up and build God’s house in Jerusalem. All their neighbors assisted them with silver equipment, with gold, with goods, livestock, and valuable gifts, in addition to all that was freely offered. King Cyrus brought out the equipment of the Lord’s house—those items that Nebuchadnezzar brought from Jerusalem and placed in the house of his gods. Persia’s King Cyrus handed them over to Mithredath the treasurer, who counted them out to Sheshbazzar the prince of Judah. This was the count: thirty gold dishes, one thousand silver dishes, twenty-nine knives, 10 thirty gold bowls, four hundred ten larger silver bowls, and one thousand other objects. 11 The total of the gold and silver objects numbered five thousand four hundred. Sheshbazzar brought up all of these when the exiles went up from Babylonia to Jerusalem.

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