Enemies want to stop them building the temple
1Someone told the enemies of the people of Judah and Benjamin that the people who had come back from Babylon had started building the temple for the Lord, the God of Israel. 2The enemies came to Zerubbabel and the family leaders and said to them: ‘We want to help you build because we also serve your God and we have sacrificed to Him from the time that King Esarhaddon of Assyria brought us here.’
3But Zerubbabel, Jeshua and the other family leaders said to them: ‘No, you can not help us build the temple. We will build it ourselves for the Lord, the God of Israel. King Cyrus of Persia told us to do it.’
4Then the people of the land tried to discourage the people of Judah and tried to make them afraid to build. 5They paid the king's advisors to try and stop the plans of the people of Judah. They did not stop doing this in all the time that Cyrus and Darius were kings of Persia. 6And when Ahasuerus became king, they wrote a letter and accused the people of Judah and Jerusalem.
The letter from Rehum
7In the time when Artaxerxes was king of Persia, Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel and other officials wrote a letter to him. They wrote the letter in the Aramaic language. 8The governor Rehum and the secretary Shimshai also wrote a letter to King Artaxerxes and said bad things about the people of Jerusalem. 9There were other people who wrote the letter with the governor Rehum and secretary Shimshai. They were the judges and other officials, people from the towns of Tripolis, Persia, Uruk, Babylon and Susa in the land of Elam. 10There were also other people near Judah from the towns of Samaria and the lands west of the Euphrates River who lived there after the great and important King Ashurbanipal caught them and sent them there.
11They wrote: ‘To King Artaxerxes, your officials, people of the lands west of the Euphrates River and further: 12Your_Majesty, you must know that the people of Judah who came from you to us went to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is a rebellious and bad city. They are busy building the walls and they have finished the foundations. 13You, the king, must know that when they have finished building this city and its walls, they will not pay tax and you will lose a lot of money. 14We are working for you and we do not want you to lose money. That is why we are sending this letter to you so that you will know. 15If you look in the books of the history of the kings who have ruled before you, then you will see that the people of this city have rebelled many times and the kings and provinces have lost a lot of money. The people from this city have always tried to make other people rebel_against the kings. That is why the kings have destroyed this city. 16We want you, the king, to know that when they have finished building this city and its walls, you will have nothing in the lands west of the Euphrates River.’
17King Artaxerxes answered and wrote a letter to them. He said: ‘To the governor Rehum, the secretary Shimshai and the other officials and people who live in Samaria and in other places in the lands west of the Euphrates River: I hope you are well. Greetings. 18I asked my people to write your letter in a language that I understand and I told them to read it to me. 19I also told my people to look into the books of the history to see what was written and they saw that the people of that city have always rebelled_against the kings and made plans to fight. 20Jerusalem has had important kings who have ruled over all the lands west of the Euphrates River and all those people had to pay taxes to the kings. 21That is why you must tell those people they must stop building the wall. They may not build that city again. They must wait until I have said that they may build it. 22You must do what I say. I do not want to lose more money.’
23When Rehum and Shimshai and the other officials read what the king had written in his letter, they went to Jerusalem to the people of Judah immediately and they told the people of Judah to stop working.
24The people of Judah stopped building the temple. They did not build any further until the 2nd year after Darius had become king of Persia.
