The Bible Study Podcast, episode 614.

Today, the Bible Study podcast continues the study of the book of Ezra with chapter four.

Welcome to the Bible Study podcast from your host, Chris Christensen.

We continue on with chapter four of Ezra. In Chapter 3, they laid the foundations of the temple.

They celebrated. They started doing sacrifices on the altar, which they built first.

It sort of seemed like in that chapter, we would say, and then they continued the work and then they finished it and they celebrated again.

But that's not what happened.

Instead, there was opposition.

Ezra 4. Opposition to the rebuilding.

When the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the exiles were building a temple for the Lord, the God of Israel. They came to Zerubabel and to the heads

of the families and said, let us help you build because like you, we seek your God and have been

sacrificing to him since the time of Esarhadan, king of Assyria, who brought us here. But Zerubabel, Joshua, and the rest of the heads of the

families of Israel answered, you have no part with us in building a temple to our God. We alone will

build it for the Lord, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus, the king of Persia, commanded us. Then the peoples

around them set out to discourage

the people of Judah and make them afraid to go on building. They bribed officials to work

against them and frustrate their plans during the entire reign of Cyrus, King of Persia,

and down to the reign of Darius King of Persia.

So there is opposition, and there's opposition from this people that don't introduce themselves.

So let's introduce them.

Remember that the other tribes of Israel are gone.

They've been carried off into captivity and dispersed by the Assyrians throughout their region,

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