1 Esdras 2

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¹In the first year of king of the , that the word of might be accomplished, that he had promised ; ² up of the king of the , and he made proclamation through all , and also by writing, ³Saying, Thus saith king of the ; of Israel, , hath made me king of the whole world, ⁴And commanded me to build him an house at in . ⁵If therefore there be any of you that are of his people, let , even his , be with him, and let him go up to that is in , and build the of Israel: for he is that dwelleth in . ⁶Whosoever then in the places about, let them help him, those, I say, that are his neighbours, with gold, and with silver, ⁷With gifts, with horses, and with cattle, and other things, which have been set forth by , for of at . ⁸Then the chief of the families of and of the tribe of stood up; the priests also, and the , and all they whose had moved to go up, and to build an house for at , ⁹And they that dwelt round about them, and helped them in all things with silver and gold, with horses and cattle, and with very many free gifts of a great number whose were stirred up thereto. ¹⁰King also brought forth the vessels, which had from , and had set up in his temple of idols. ¹¹Now when king of the had brought them forth, he them to Mithridates his treasurer: ¹²And by him they were to Sanabassar the governor of . ¹³And this was the number of them; A thousand golden , and a thousand of silver, censers of silver twenty nine, vials of gold thirty, and of silver two thousand four hundred and ten, and a thousand other vessels. ¹⁴So all the vessels of gold and of silver, which were , were five thousand four hundred threescore and nine. ¹⁵These were brought back by Sanabassar, together with them of , from to . ¹⁶But in the time of king of the Belemus, and Mithridates, and Tabellius, and , and Beeltethmus, and the secretary, with others that were in commission with them, dwelling in and other places, wrote unto him against them that dwelt in and these letters following; ¹⁷To king our , Thy servants, the storywriter, and the , and the rest of their council, and the judges that are in and . ¹⁸Be it now known to king, that the that are up from you to us, being come into , that rebellious and city, do build the marketplaces, and repair the walls of it and do lay the foundation of . ¹⁹Now if this city and the walls thereof be made up again, they will not only refuse to give tribute, but also rebel against kings. ²⁰And forasmuch as the things pertaining to are now in hand, we think it meet not to neglect such a matter, ²¹But to speak unto our the king, to the intent that, if it be thy pleasure it may be sought out in the books of thy fathers: ²²And thou shalt find in the chronicles what is written concerning these things, and shalt understand that that city was rebellious, troubling both kings and cities: ²³And that the were rebellious, and always wars therein; for the which cause even this city was made desolate. ²⁴Wherefore now we do declare unto thee, O the king, that if this city be built again, and the walls thereof set up anew, thou shalt from henceforth have no passage into and . ²⁵Then the king wrote back again to the storywriter, to Beeltethmus, to the , and to the rest that were in commission, and dwellers in and and , after this manner; ²⁶I have read the epistle which ye have sent unto me: therefore I commanded to make diligent search, and it hath been found that that city was practising against kings; ²⁷And the men therein were given to rebellion and war: and that mighty kings and fierce were in , who reigned and exacted tributes in and . ²⁸Now therefore I have commanded to hinder those men from building the city, and heed to be taken that there be no more done in it; ²⁹And that those workers proceed no further to the annoyance of kings, ³⁰Then king his letters being read, , and the , and the rest that were in commission with them, removing in haste toward with a troop of horsemen and a multitude of people in battle array, began to hinder the builders; and the building of in ceased until the second year of the reign of Darius king of the .

The 1611 translation, public domain. Its original printing included the Apocrypha, which is why the deuterocanonical books can be read here. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.

The world at this moment · The Persian return, 539 BC to 332 BC ›

Persia takes Babylon and reverses its policy, sending exiled peoples home to rebuild their temples. Judah returns as a small province, rebuilding under imperial permission rather than independence.

Persia: The largest empire the world had yet seen, from the Indus to the Aegean, run through provinces, a royal road, and a postal system. Its policy on conquered peoples was to send them home and fund their temples, in exchange for loyalty and prayers for the king. The Cyrus Cylinder states the policy in Cyrus's own words, and Ezra opens with the same policy applied to Judah.
Judah: A small, poor province called Yehud, a fraction of the old kingdom, with a rebuilt temple that made the people who remembered the first one weep. No king, and no prospect of one. Leadership passes to priests and scribes, which shapes everything afterward.
Greece: Persia and Greece collide at Marathon and Salamis, Persia loses, and Athens spends the following decades on the Parthenon, tragedy, and Socrates. Herodotus writes the first history in order to explain that war. Then Plato and Aristotle, whose vocabulary the church will still be using at Nicaea eight centuries later.
Further afield: Rome throws out its kings and becomes a republic. In India and China this is the age of the Buddha's early followers and of Confucian teaching taking hold. More of what the world still thinks with was invented in this era than in almost any other.

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