But respond favorably to your servant’s prayer and his request for help, O Lord my God. Answer the desperate prayer your servant is presenting to you.

Don’t you realize that the Lord God of Israel has given David and his dynasty lasting dominion over Israel by a formal agreement?

That day the Israelites were defeated; the men of Judah prevailed because they relied on the Lord God of their ancestors.

Our God, you drove out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and gave it as a permanent possession to the descendants of your friend Abraham.

All the kingdoms of the surrounding lands were afraid of God when they heard how the Lord had fought against Israel’s enemies.

He was buried in the City of David with the kings, because he had accomplished good in Israel and for God and his temple.

In one day King Pekah son of Remaliah of Israel killed 120,000 warriors in Judah, because they had abandoned the Lord God of their ancestors.

And now you are planning to enslave the people of Judah and Jerusalem. Yet are you not also guilty before the Lord your God?

Now I intend to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel, so that he may relent from his raging anger.

Don’t be like your fathers and brothers who were unfaithful to the Lord God of their ancestors, provoking him to destroy them, as you can see.

The Lord God of their ancestors continually warned them through his messengers, for he felt compassion for his people and his dwelling place.

Then King Cyrus brought out the vessels of the Lord’s temple which Nebuchadnezzar had brought from Jerusalem and had displayed in the temple of his gods.

When the enemies of Judah and Benjamin learned that the former exiles were building a temple for the Lord God of Israel,

He said to him, “Take these vessels and go deposit them in the temple in Jerusalem, and let the house of God be rebuilt in its proper location.”

The people of Israel – the priests, the Levites, and the rest of the exiles – observed the dedication of this temple of God with joy.

They appointed the priests by their divisions and the Levites by their divisions over the worship of God at Jerusalem, in accord with the book of Moses.

and to bring silver and gold which the king and his advisers have freely contributed to the God of Israel, who resides in Jerusalem,

You may do whatever seems appropriate to you and your colleagues with the rest of the silver and the gold, in keeping with the will of your God.

Now give praise to the Lord God of your fathers, and do his will. Separate yourselves from the local residents and from these foreign wives.”

When I heard these things I sat down abruptly, crying and mourning for several days. I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.