1. And after these things, in the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, Ezra the son of Seraiah, the son of Azariah, the son of Hilkijah,
2. the son of Shallum, the son of Zadok, the son of Ahitub,
3. the son of Amariah, the son of Azariah, the son of Meraioth,
4. the son of Zerahiah, the son of Uzzi, the son of Bukki,
5. the son of Abishua, the son of Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the chief priest,
6. --this Ezra went up from Babylon; and he was a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which Jehovah the God of Israel had given. And the king granted him all his request, according to the hand of Jehovah his God upon him.
7. (And there went up some of the children of Israel, and of the priests, and the Levites, and the singers, and the doorkeepers, and the Nethinim, to Jerusalem, in the seventh year of Artaxerxes the king.)
8. And he came to Jerusalem in the fifth month, which was in the seventh year of the king.
9. For upon the first of the first month the project of going up from Babylon was determined on, and on the first of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem, according to the good hand of his God upon him.
10. For Ezra had directed his heart to seek the law of Jehovah and to do it, and to teach in Israel the statutes and the ordinances.
11. And this is the copy of the letter that king Artaxerxes gave to Ezra the priest, the scribe, a scribe of the words of the commandments of Jehovah, and of his statutes to Israel:
12. Artaxerxes, king of kings, to Ezra the priest, an accomplished scribe of the law of the God of the heavens, and so forth.
13. I have given orders that all they of the people of Israel, and of their priests and the Levites, in my realm, who are disposed to go to Jerusalem, go with thee.