When I heard this report, I tore my tunic and my robe and ripped out some of the hair from my head and beard. Then I sat down, quite devastated.

I prayed, ¹  “O my God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to lift my face to you, my God! For our iniquities have climbed higher than our heads, and our guilt extends to the heavens.

These are the leaders ¹  and those enrolled with them by genealogy who were coming up with me from Babylon during the reign of King Artaxerxes:

We also inquired of their names in order to inform you, so that we might write the names of the men who were their leaders.

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 

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.

Many of the priests, the Levites, and the leaders ¹  – older people who had seen with their own eyes the former temple while it was still established ²  – were weeping loudly, ³  and many others raised their voice in a joyous shout.

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, ¹  in the storerooms of the temple of the Lord.”

they came to Zerubbabel and the leaders ¹  and said to them, “Let us help you build, ²  for like you we seek your God and we have been sacrificing to him ³  from the time ⁴  of King Esarhaddon ⁵  of Assyria, who brought us here.” ⁶ 

But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the leaders of Israel said to them, “You have no right ¹  to help us build the temple of our God. We will build it by ourselves for the Lord God of Israel, just as King Cyrus, the king of Persia, has commanded us.”

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