The Bible Study Podcast, episode 615. Today, the Bible Study podcast continues the study of the

book of Ezra with Chapter 5.

Welcome to the Bible Study podcast. I'm your host, Chris Christensen. We're continuing on with chapter 5, and time has passed. And so we've got a new emperor of Persia, and this is Darius, Darius the second, to be more precise. And this is Tatani's letter to Darius. Now, Haggai the prophet and Zachariah the prophet, a descendant of Edo, prophesied to the Jews in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel who was over them.

Then Zerubububel, son of Shaltiel and Joshua, son of Jehoshadac, set to work to rebuild the house of God in Jerusalem,

and the prophets of God were with them, supporting them. At that time, Tatani, governor of the

trans Euphrates, and Shethar, Bozani, and their associates went to them and asked,

who authorized you to rebuild this temple and finish it?

They also asked, what are the names of those who are constructing this building?

But the eye of their God was watching over the elders of the Jews,

and they were not stopped until a report could go to Darius and his written reply be received.

This is a copy of the letter that Tata and I, the governor of Trans-Ephrates, and Shethar

Bozani, and their associates, the officials of the Trans-Uphrates, sent to King Darius.

The report they sent to him read as follows.

To King Darius, cordial greetings, the king should know that we went

to the district of Judah to the temple of the great God, that people are building it with large

stones and placing the timbers in the walls. The work is being carried out with diligence

and is making rapid progress under their direction.

We questioned the elders and asked them, who authorized you to rebuild this temple and

to finish it.

We also asked them their names so we could write down the names of their leaders for your

information.

This is the information they gave us.

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