Ezra 4:2-10
2they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of fathers’ houses and said to them, “Let us build with you, for we worship your God as you do, and we have been sacrificing to him ever asince the days of bEsarhaddon king of Assyria cwho brought us here.” 3But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of fathers’ houses in Israel said to them, d“You have nothing to do with us in building a house to our God; but we alone will build to the Lord, the God of Israel, eas King Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us.”4Then fthe people of the land discouraged the people of Judah and made them afraid to build 5and bribed counselors against them to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia.
6And in the reign of gAhasuerus, in the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem.
The Letter to King Artaxerxes
7In the days of Artaxerxes, Bishlam and hMithredath and Tabeel and the rest of their associates wrote to Artaxerxes king of Persia. The letter was written iin Aramaic and translated. ▼▼Hebrew written in Aramaic and translated in Aramaic, indicating that 4:8–6:18 is in Aramaic; another interpretation is The letter was written in the Aramaic script and set forth in the Aramaic language
8Rehum the commander and Shimshai the scribe wrote a letter against Jerusalem to Artaxerxes the king as follows: 9Rehum the commander, Shimshai the scribe, and the rest of their associates, the kjudges, the lgovernors, the officials, the Persians, the men of Erech, the Babylonians, the men of Susa, that is, the mElamites, 10and the rest of the nations whom the great and noble nOsnappar deported and settled in the cities of Samaria and in the rest of the province Beyond the River.
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