1-2. Many people living in the area were against the people of Judah and Benjamin. These enemies heard that the people who had come from captivity were building a temple for the Lord, the God of Israel. So they came to Zerubbabel and to the family leaders and said, “Let us help you build. We are the same as you, we ask your God for help. We have offered sacrifices to your God since the time King Esarhaddon of Assyria brought us here.”
3. But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the other family leaders of Israel answered, “No, you people cannot help us build a temple for our God. Only we can build the Temple for the Lord. He is the God of Israel. This is what King Cyrus of Persia commanded us to do.”
4. So the enemies began to discourage them and tried to frighten them in order to stop them from building the Temple.
5. These enemies hired government officials to work against the people of Judah. The officials constantly did things to stop the Jews’ plans to build the Temple. This continued the whole time that Cyrus was the king until Darius became the king of Persia.
6. These enemies even wrote letters to the king of Persia trying to stop the Jews. They wrote a letter the year that Xerxes became the king of Persia.
7. Later, when Artaxerxes became the new king of Persia, some of these men wrote another letter complaining about the Jews. The men who wrote the letter were Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the other people in their group. The letter was written in Aramaic and translated.
8. Then Rehum the commanding officer and Shimshai the secretary wrote a letter against the people of Jerusalem. They wrote the letter to Artaxerxes the king. This is what they wrote:
9. From Rehum the commanding officer and Shimshai the secretary, and from the judges and important officials over the men from Tripolis, Persia, Erech, and Babylon, and from the Elamites from Susa,
10. and from the other people who the great and powerful Ashurbanipal moved to the city of Samaria and other places in the country west of the Euphrates River.