In the third month they began piling their contributions in heaps ¹  and finished in the seventh month.

Eli’s eyes had begun to fail, so that he was unable to see well. At that time he was lying down in his place,

From the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the Lord. However, the Lord’s temple was not at that time established. ¹ 

So the Jews committed themselves to continue what they had begun to do and to what Mordecai had written to them.

At the celebration ¹  of their king, ²  his princes become inflamed ³  with wine; they conspire ⁴  with evildoers.

When they began to shout and praise, the Lord suddenly attacked ¹  the Ammonites, Moabites, and men from Mount Seir ²  who were invading Judah, and they were defeated.

(4:1) ¹  When Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites, and the people of Ashdod heard that the restoration of the walls of Jerusalem ²  had moved ahead and that the breaches had begun to be closed, they were very angry.

In the second year after they had come to the temple of God in Jerusalem, ¹  in the second month, Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak initiated the work, ²  along with the rest of their associates, ³  the priests and the Levites, and all those who were coming to Jerusalem from the exile. They appointed ⁴  the Levites who were at least twenty years old ⁵  to take charge of the work on the Lord’s temple.