Then Shecaniah son of Jehiel, from the descendants of Elam, ¹  addressed Ezra: “We have been unfaithful to our God by marrying ²  foreign women from the local peoples. ³  Nonetheless, there is still hope for Israel in this regard. ⁴ 

and Hashabiah, along with Jeshaiah from the descendants of Merari, with his brothers and their sons, 20 men,

Then the leaders ¹  of Judah and Benjamin, along with the priests and the Levites – all those whose mind God had stirred – got ready ²  to go up in order to build the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem. ³ 

People were unable to tell the difference between the sound of joyous shouting and the sound of the people’s weeping, for the people were shouting so loudly ¹  that the sound was heard a long way off.

All these had taken foreign wives, and some of them also had children by these women. ¹ 

On the twelfth day of the first month we began traveling from the Ahava Canal to go to Jerusalem. The hand of our God was on us, and he delivered us from our enemy and from bandits ¹  along the way.

20 gold bowls worth 1,000 darics, and two exquisite vessels of gleaming bronze, as valuable as gold.

While Ezra was praying and confessing, weeping and throwing himself to the ground before the temple of God, a very large crowd of Israelites – men, women, and children alike – gathered around him. The people wept loudly. ¹ 

and on the first day of the first month they finished considering all the men who had married foreign wives.

Anyone who survives in any of those places where he is a resident foreigner must be helped by his neighbors ¹  with silver, gold, equipment, and animals, along with voluntary offerings for the temple of God which is in Jerusalem.’”

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.

Then the priests and the Levites took charge of ¹  the silver, the gold, and the vessels that had been weighed out, to transport them to Jerusalem to the temple of our God.

Anyone from ¹  his people among you (may his God be with him!) may go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and may build the temple of the Lord God of Israel – he is the God who is in Jerusalem.

O Lord God of Israel, you are righteous, for we are left as a remnant this day. Indeed, we stand before you in our guilt. However, because of this guilt ¹  no one can really stand before you.”

From ¹  Rehum the commander, Shimshai the scribe, and the rest of their colleagues – the judges, the rulers, the officials, the secretaries, the Erechites, the Babylonians, the people of Susa (that is, ²  the Elamites),

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.’

This Ezra is the one who came up from Babylon. He was a scribe who was skilled in the law of Moses which the Lord God of Israel had given. The king supplied him with everything he requested, for the hand of the Lord his God was on him.

The inventory ¹  of these items was as follows: 30 gold basins, ²  1,000 silver basins, 29 silver utensils, ³ 

Everyone who did not come within three days would thereby forfeit all his property, in keeping with the counsel of the officials and the elders. Furthermore, he himself would be excluded from the assembly of the exiles.

Although we are slaves, our God has not abandoned us in our servitude. He has extended kindness to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, in that he has revived us ¹  to restore the temple of our God and to raise ²  up its ruins and to give us a protective wall in Judah and Jerusalem. ³