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1Then the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the people of the exile were building a temple to Yahweh, the God of Israel,
2so they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of fathers’ households and said to them, “Let us build with you, for we, like you, seek your God; and we have been sacrificing to Him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria, who brought us up here.”
3But Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the rest of the heads of fathers’ households of Israel said to them, “You have nothing in common with us in building a house to our God; but we ourselves will together build to Yahweh, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus, the king of Persia has commanded us.”
4So the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah and dismayed them from building,[#4:4 Lit made the hands limp]
5and hired counselors against them to frustrate their counsel all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia.
6Now in the reign of Ahasuerus, in the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem.[#4:6 Or Xerxes ; Heb Ahash-verosh]
7And in the days of Artaxerxes, Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of his colleagues wrote to Artaxerxes king of Persia; and the text of the letter was written in Aramaic and translated from Aramaic.[#4:7 Heb Artah-shashta; #4:7 Lit writing]
8Rehum the commander and Shimshai the scribe wrote a letter against Jerusalem to King Artaxerxes, as follows—[#4:8 Ch 4:8-6:18 is in Aram]
11this is the copy of the letter which they sent to him:
17Then the king sent an edict to Rehum the commander, to Shimshai the scribe, and to the rest of their colleagues who live in Samaria and in the rest of the provinces beyond the River: “Peace. And now—
18the document which you sent to us has been plainly read before me.
23Then as soon as the copy of King Artaxerxes’ document was read before Rehum and Shimshai the scribe and their colleagues, they went in haste to Jerusalem to the Jews and stopped them by force and military.
24Then the work on the house of God in Jerusalem stopped, and it was stopped until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.