Ezra 7:1-13 ▼

1 NOW after all these things, in the reign of Artakhshisht king of Persia, came Ezra the son of Seraiah, the son of Azariah, the son of Hilkiah,

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 Gadai, the son of Bakki,

5 The son of Abishua, the son of Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the chief priest.

6 This Ezra was a leader who went up from Babylon; and he was a scribe learned in the law of Moses, which the LORD God of Israel had given; and the king granted him all his request, that he might walk as he pleased according to the law of the LORD.

7 And there went up some of the children of Israel and of the priests and the Levites, the ministers, and the porters and the Nethinites and of those who had formerly gone up to Jerusalem, in the seventh year of Artakhshisht the king.

8 And they came to Jerusalem in the fifth month, which was in the seventh year of the king.

9 For on the first month they began to go up from Babylon, and on the first day of the fifth month they came to Jerusalem, according to the hand of God which had been good to them.

10 For Ezra had set his heart to seek the law of the LORD and to do it and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments.

11 Now this is the copy of the letter which King Artakhshisht gave to Ezra the priest, the learned scribe of the words and the commandments of the LORD and of his statutes to all Israel:

12 Artakhshisht, king of kings, to Ezra the priest and scribe, learned in the law of the God of heaven, peace.

13 I have issued a decree and made a statute that any one of the people of Israel and of the priests and Levites in my realm who wishes to go up to Jerusalem with you may go.