Ezra 4:1

When they had arrived, and had gathered the assembly together, they reported all the things that God had done with them, and that he had opened a door of faith to the nations.

Now when I came to Troas for the Good News of Christ, and when a door was opened to me in the Lord,

“I know your works (behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one can shut), that you have a little power, and kept my word, and didn’t deny my name.

The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs. To him will the obedience of the peoples be.

Solomon offered for the sacrifice of peace offerings, which he offered to Yahweh, twenty two thousand head of cattle, and one hundred twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the children of Israel dedicated Yahweh’s house.

King Solomon offered a sacrifice of twenty-two thousand head of cattle and a hundred twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the people dedicated God’s house.

Then work stopped on God’s house which is at Jerusalem. It stopped until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.

this Ezra went up from Babylon. He was a skilled scribe in the law of Moses, which Yahweh, the God of Israel, had given; and the king granted him all his request, according to Yahweh his God’s hand on him.

For I was ashamed to ask of the king a band of soldiers and horsemen to help us against the enemy on the way, because we had spoken to the king, saying, “The hand of our God is on all those who seek him, for good; but his power and his wrath is against all those who forsake him.”

Then the king sent an answer to Rehum the chancellor, and to Shimshai the scribe, and to the rest of their companions who live in Samaria, and in the rest of the country beyond the River: Peace.

For a child is born to us. A son is given to us; and the government will be on his shoulders. His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Behold, I have given him for a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander to the peoples.

You will see it, and your heart shall rejoice, and your bones will flourish like the tender grass. Yahweh’s hand will be known among his servants; and he will have indignation against his enemies.

Then Arioch brought in Daniel before the king in haste, and said this to him: “I have found a man of the children of the captivity of Judah who will make known to the king the interpretation.”

There is a man in your kingdom, in whom is the spirit of the holy gods; and in the days of your father light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, were found in him. The king Nebuchadnezzar your father, yes, the king, your father, made him master of the magicians, enchanters, Chaldeans, and soothsayers;

Then they answered and said before the king, “That Daniel, who is of the children of the captivity of Judah, doesn’t respect you, O king, nor the decree that you have signed, but makes his petition three times a day.”

Then I asked, “What are these coming to do?” He said, “These are the horns which scattered Judah, so that no man lifted up his head; but these have come to terrify them, to cast down the horns of the nations, which lifted up their horn against the land of Judah to scatter it.”

and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and God’s Kingdom is at hand! Repent, and believe in the Good News.”

He first found his own brother, Simon, and said to him, “We have found the Messiah!” (which is, being interpreted, Christ).

The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah comes, he who is called Christ. When he has come, he will declare to us all things.”

For we don’t desire to have you uninformed, brothers, concerning our affliction which happened to us in Asia, that we were weighed down exceedingly, beyond our power, so much that we despaired even of life.

For many walk, of whom I told you often, and now tell you even weeping, as the enemies of the cross of Christ,

praying together for us also, that God may open to us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds,

All the vessels of gold and of silver were five thousand four hundred. Sheshbazzar brought all these up when the captives were brought up from Babylon to Jerusalem.

This is the copy of the letter that they sent: To King Artaxerxes, From your servants the men beyond the River.

Artaxerxes, king of kings, To Ezra the priest, the scribe of the law of the perfect God of heaven. Now

Then we departed from the river Ahava on the twelfth day of the first month, to go to Jerusalem. The hand of our God was on us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy and the bandit by the way.

and a letter to Asaph the keeper of the king’s forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel by the temple, for the wall of the city, and for the house that I will occupy.” The king granted my requests, because of the good hand of my God on me.

Then Eliashib the high priest rose up with his brothers the priests, and they built the sheep gate. They sanctified it, and set up its doors. They sanctified it even to the tower of Hammeah, to the tower of Hananel.

and they all conspired together to come and fight against Jerusalem, and to cause confusion among us.

So the wall was finished in the twenty-fifth day of Elul, in fifty-two days.

For he has strengthened the bars of your gates. He has blessed your children within you.

‘They will be carried to Babylon, and there they will be, until the day that I visit them,’ says Yahweh; ‘then I will bring them up, and restore them to this place.’ ”

I will overturn, overturn, overturn it. This also will be no more, until he comes whose right it is; and I will give it.” ’

Yes, it magnified itself, even to the prince of the army; and it took away from him the continual burnt offering, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down.

Through his policy he will cause deceit to prosper in his hand. He will magnify himself in his heart, and he will destroy many in their security. He will also stand up against the prince of princes; but he will be broken without hand.

At the beginning of your petitions the commandment went out, and I have come to tell you; for you are greatly beloved. Therefore consider the matter, and understand the vision.

But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, being small among the clans of Judah, out of you one will come out to me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings out are from of old, from ancient times.

Then I asked, ‘My lord, what are these?’ ” The angel who talked with me said to me, “I will show you what these are.”

Behold, the angel who talked with me went out, and another angel went out to meet him,

The angel who talked with me came again, and wakened me, as a man who is wakened out of his sleep.

The king said to Zadok, “Carry God’s ark back into the city. If I find favor in Yahweh’s eyes, he will bring me again, and show me both it, and his habitation;

even those, Cyrus king of Persia brought out by the hand of Mithredath the treasurer, and counted them out to Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah.

In the days of Artaxerxes, Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of his companions, wrote to Artaxerxes king of Persia; and the writing of the letter was written in Syrian, and delivered in the Syrian language.

and the rest of the nations whom the great and noble Osnappar brought over, and set in the city of Samaria, and in the rest of the country beyond the River, and so forth, wrote.

The children of Israel, the priests, the Levites, and the rest of the children of the captivity, kept the dedication of this house of God with joy.

Now after these things, in the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, Ezra the son of Seraiah, the son of Azariah, the son of Hilkiah,

He came to Jerusalem in the fifth month, which was in the seventh year of the king.

For on the first day of the first month he began to go up from Babylon; and on the first day of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem, according to the good hand of his God on him.

They made a proclamation throughout Judah and Jerusalem to all the children of the captivity, that they should gather themselves together to Jerusalem;

The children of the captivity did so. Ezra the priest, with certain heads of fathers’ households, after their fathers’ houses, and all of them by their names, were set apart; and they sat down in the first day of the tenth month to examine the matter.

Those who built the wall, and those who bore burdens loaded themselves; everyone with one of his hands did the work, and with the other held his weapon.

Now when it was reported to Sanballat, Tobiah, and to Geshem the Arabian, and to the rest of our enemies, that I had built the wall, and that there was no breach left in it (though even to that time I had not set up the doors in the gates)

Do well in your good pleasure to Zion. Build the walls of Jerusalem.

For my enemies talk about me. Those who watch for my soul conspire together,

Yahweh builds up Jerusalem. He gathers together the outcasts of Israel.

who confirms the word of his servant, and performs the counsel of his messengers; who says of Jerusalem, ‘She will be inhabited;’ and of the cities of Judah, ‘They will be built,’ and ‘I will raise up its waste places;’

Those who will be of you will build the old waste places. You will raise up the foundations of many generations. You will be called Repairer of the Breach, Restorer of Paths with Dwellings.

It will happen that, like as I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down and to overthrow and to destroy and to afflict, so I will watch over them to build and to plant,” says Yahweh.

“Behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that the city will be built to Yahweh from the tower of Hananel to the gate of the corner.

“Behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that I will perform that good word which I have spoken concerning the house of Israel and concerning the house of Judah.

Then Daniel was brought in before the king. The king spoke and said to Daniel, “Are you that Daniel of the children of the captivity of Judah, whom the king my father brought out of Judah?

Then I heard a holy one speaking; and another holy one said to that certain one who spoke, “How long will the vision about the continual burnt offering, and the disobedience that makes desolate, to give both the sanctuary and the army to be trodden under foot be?”

I, Daniel, fainted, and was sick for some days. Then I rose up, and did the king’s business. I wondered at the vision, but no one understood it.

“Know therefore and discern that from the going out of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem to the Anointed One, the prince, will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. It will be built again, with street and moat, even in troubled times.

I heard the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left hand to heaven, and swore by him who lives forever that it will be for a time, times, and a half; and when they have finished breaking in pieces the power of the holy people, all these things will be finished.

A day to build your walls— In that day, he will extend your boundary.

You pierced the heads of his warriors with their own spears. They came as a whirlwind to scatter me, gloating as if to devour the wretched in secret.

I asked the angel who talked with me, “What are these?” He answered me, “These are the horns which have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem.”

Then I asked, “Where are you going?” He said to me, “To measure Jerusalem, to see what is its width and what is its length.”

He showed me Joshua the high priest standing before Yahweh’s angel, and Satan standing at his right hand to be his adversary.

I answered and spoke to the angel who talked with me, saying, “What are these, my lord?”

Then the angel who talked with me came forward, and said to me, “Lift up now your eyes, and see what this is that is appearing.”

It shall come to pass that, as you were a curse among the nations, house of Judah and house of Israel, so I will save you, and you shall be a blessing. Don’t be afraid. Let your hands be strong.”

What was sown on the good ground, this is he who hears the word, and understands it, who most certainly bears fruit, and produces, some one hundred times as much, some sixty, and some thirty.”

“When, therefore, you see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand),

Then the King will tell those on his right hand, ‘Come, blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;

But when you see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not” (let the reader understand), “then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains,

Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are King of Israel!”

His brothers therefore said to him, “Depart from here and go into Judea, that your disciples also may see your works which you do.

The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out.

When this sound was heard, the multitude came together and were bewildered, because everyone heard them speaking in his own language.

and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, to which we are witnesses.

God exalted him with his right hand to be a Prince and a Savior, to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins.

Philip ran to him, and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?”

As he talked with him, he went in and found many gathered together.

and that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory,

for a great and effective door has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.

redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

Greet the brothers who are in Laodicea, and Nymphas, and the assembly that is in his house.

Finally, brothers, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may spread rapidly and be glorified, even as also with you,

and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us, and washed us from our sins by his blood—

He has on his garment and on his thigh a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.”