Hey, you are listening to A Year in the Bible with Daily Grace.

We're so glad you are here with us today.

We're wrapping up the book of Ezra.

Right, CJ, we're going to cover a few chapters, chapters 7 through 10.

You want to walk us through these chapters?

Absolutely.

So today we finally meet Ezra, after whom the book is titled, and he finally comes to the

four.

He's a priestly scribe who knew well the law of Moses.

So he's a very studious guy.

He's also a priest.

And he lived during the reign of a guy named Artaxerxes, who was another Persian king.

And it was around the time of about 450 BC. So again,

we see sort of the long development of this restoration and this return of the Jews back

in the land of Israel. And the text says that the hand of the Lord was upon him, was upon Ezra

in Ezra 7.6. So the Lord has commissioned this man to do something. And he comes with a decree

from the king, our taxic sees back in Persia, and it says that any Jews who want to come with me

and who want to go back to the land are free to do so, you guys can join me now and we'll all go

back. So we recruit some Levites and they all head from Babylon and from that region and they head for Judah.

And then we get to Ezra 9.

And here Ezra arrives and some local leaders tell them some unfortunate news.

They say some of the Levites have taken foreign wives.

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