<t /><p class="bodytext">These are the leaders<n id="1" /> and those enrolled with them by genealogy who were coming up with me from Babylon during the reign of King Artaxerxes:p>

So the exiles proceeded accordingly. Ezra the priest separated out<n id="1" /> by name men who were leaders in their family groups.<n id="2" /> They sat down to consider this matter on the first day of the tenth month,

<p class="bodytext">These are the ones that came up from Tel Melah, Tel Harsha, Kerub, Addon, and Immer (although they were unable to certify<n id="1" /> their family connection<n id="2" /> or their ancestry,<n id="3" /> as to whether they really were from Israel):p>

When they came to the <sc>Lordsc>&#8217;s temple in Jerusalem, some of the family leaders<n id="1" /> offered voluntary offerings for the temple of God in order to rebuild<n id="2" /> it on its site.

<n id="1" /><p class="bodytext">Blessed be the <sc>Lordsc> God of our fathers, who so moved in the heart of the king to so honor the temple of the <sc>Lordsc> which is in Jerusalem!

Then I said to them, &#8220;You are holy to the <sc>Lordsc>, just as these vessels are holy. The silver and the gold are a voluntary offering to the <sc>Lordsc>, the God of your fathers.

Be careful with them and protect them, until you weigh them out before the leading priests and the Levites and the family leaders of Israel in Jerusalem,<n id="1" /> in the storerooms of the temple of the <sc>Lordsc>.&#8221;p>

Now give praise to the <sc>Lordsc> God of your fathers, and do his will. Separate yourselves from the local residents<n id="1" /> and from these foreign wives.&#8221;p>

<t /><p class="bodytext">Then the leaders<n id="1" /> of Judah and Benjamin, along with the priests and the Levites &#8211; all those whose mind God had stirred &#8211; got ready<n id="2" /> to go up in order to build the temple of the <sc>Lordsc> in Jerusalem.<n id="3" />

Many of the priests, the Levites, and the leaders<n id="1" /> &#8211; older people who had seen with their own eyes the former temple while it was still established<n id="2" /> &#8211; were weeping loudly,<n id="3" /> and many others raised their voice in a joyous shout.

they came to Zerubbabel and the leaders<n id="1" /> and said to them, &#8220;Let us help you build,<n id="2" /> for like you we seek your God and we have been sacrificing to him<n id="3" /> from the time<n id="4" /> of King Esarhaddon<n id="5" /> of Assyria, who brought us here.&#8221;<n id="6" />

But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the leaders of Israel said to them, &#8220;You have no right<n id="1" /> to help us build the temple of our God. We will build it by ourselves for the <sc>Lordsc> God of Israel, just as King Cyrus, the king of Persia, has commanded us.&#8221;

From the days of our fathers until this very day our guilt has been great. Because of our iniquities we, along with our kings and<n id="1" /> priests, have been delivered over by the local kings<n id="2" /> to sword, captivity, plunder, and embarrassment &#8211; right up to the present time.p>