Hey, it's Shelby and CJ. We're going to jump right into the word. Today, we're in the book of Ezra.

Today we're in chapters 4 through 6. We're smack dab in the middle of this book. What's going on in

these chapters, CJ? Yeah, so again, we're in this section where Ezra's concerned with rebuilding the temple.

Back in Ezra 3, we just learned about the community rebuilding the altar, and now the focus shifts to the temple itself.

And Ezra 4 through 6 sort of combines a bunch of different little stories and little obstacles from different eras during Ezra Nehemiah

to show different people groups opposing their rebuilding efforts of the temple.

One in particular, we have Zerubbabel and Jeshua in chapter 5, and they try to frighten off these Jews

and try to say you can't rebuild the temple here.

And the opposition sort of continues through these chapters.

But eventually, we have some encouragement from Hegei and Zechariah, who are two prophets,

which we'll hear about later on in the canon.

And they encourage people to continue on, to continue going and continue building the temple.

But more opposition is around and the building has to stop, actually, until the governor of the region can get confirmation from Darius, who's a king that follows Cyrus.

So we see sort of the long plan or how long it's taken to rebuild this temple.

And eventually, Darius finds that original decree from Cyrus, where Cyrus initially let the Jews return and rebuild their temple.

And Darius finds that decree.

And he says, okay, you guys can continue your rebuilding efforts and actually here's some more money to continue doing so.

So again, we see sort of God's control over a really long period of history in this case.

Yeah, absolutely.

So again, we see God's control, but are there other ways that we see God in these passages and what do we take away from it?

Yeah, I think we see that despite continual opposition, the Lord is still faithful to his plan,

and that there's not really a contradiction between suffering and also leaning into what God

...