very much to our midweek Bible studies on Thursday night and teaching through the Old Testament,

especially here in the book of Ezra. I am really excited about what the Lord has for us tonight

in the two chapters that are before us. We're making our way through the Bible, book by book, chapter by chapter,

verse by verse. And tonight we're going to take two chapters, chapter seven and eight. We did chapters

five and six last week. And these are two chapters, I think, that kind of need to go together,

especially chapter eight. I'm really excited about something that I've

actually been wanting to talk about in recent weeks, and so I'm really looking forward to,

again, what the Lord has for us. Why do we pray pray and we'll ask God to bless our time together

in His word tonight so if you would join with me. Father in heaven I'm so thankful to you for those that are here tonight

I Lord thank you for their love for you and for your word and Lord that's why we're here tonight we're here because we want to

hear you speak into our lives in and through your word Lord we love your word we love you

and so Lord would you just minister to us tonight and not allow anything to distract us or keep us. Lord, we don't want to miss anything

that you have in store for us tonight. So Lord, speak. Your servants are listening. We pray.

In Jesus' name, amen. All right. So there's actually a 58 year gap between chapters six and seven and so it's for that reason

I think it would be good if we had a bit of the backories so we have a better understanding of what is happening

here. We're going to be introduced to Ezra tonight. We sort of turn a corner where the first

six chapters in the book were about the first wave of Jews that had returned from captivity to Jerusalem

with Zarubabel.

I mean, the book could have actually easily been titled the book of Zarubabel because

the first six chapters of the ten chapters in the book were chiefly focused

on him and this first wave of Jews that had returned.

Now we turn this corner and learn about this second return, this second wave, if you will,

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