The governor ¹  instructed them not to eat any of the sacred food until there was a priest who could consult ²  the Urim and Thummim.

Now give orders that these men cease their work and that this city not be rebuilt until such time as I so instruct. ¹ 

I have now issued a decree ¹  that anyone in my kingdom from the people of Israel – even the priests and Levites – who wishes to do so may go up with you to Jerusalem. ² 

When they came to the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem, some of the family leaders ¹  offered voluntary offerings for the temple of God in order to rebuild ²  it on its site.

Now ¹  let the king be aware that the Jews who came up to us from you have gone to Jerusalem. They are rebuilding that rebellious and odious city. ²  They are completing its walls and repairing its foundations.

With this money you should be sure to purchase bulls, rams, and lambs, along with the appropriate ¹  meal offerings and libations. You should bring them to the altar of the temple of your God which is in Jerusalem.

Everyone who held the words of the God of Israel in awe ¹  gathered around me because of the unfaithful acts of the people of the exile. ²  Devastated, I continued to sit there until the evening offering.

Shall we once again break your commandments and intermarry with these abominable peoples? Would you not be so angered by us that you would wipe us out, with no survivor or remnant?

Furthermore let the gold and silver vessels of the temple of God, which Nebuchadnezzar brought from the temple in Jerusalem and carried to Babylon, be returned and brought to their proper place in the temple in Jerusalem. Let them be deposited in the temple of God.’

Indeed, they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race ¹  has become intermingled with the local residents. Worse still, the leaders and the officials have been at the forefront of all of this!”

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 ¹  priests, have been delivered over by the local kings ²  to sword, captivity, plunder, and embarrassment – right up to the present time.

Let our leaders take steps ¹  on behalf of all the assembly. Let all those in our towns who have married foreign women come at an appointed time, and with them the elders of each town and its judges, until the hot anger of our God is turned away from us in this matter.”