Esdras 8

The family heads who went up with Ezra

¹These are the heads of the ancestral families, with their genealogical records, who came up with me from Babylon during the reign of King Artaxerxes:

²Of the descendants of Phinehas, Gershom; of the descendants of Ithamar, Daniel; of the descendants of David, Hattush,

³of the descendants of Shecaniah. Of the descendants of Parosh, Zechariah, and with him 150 men were registered.^a

⁴Of the descendants of Pahath-moab, Eliehoenai son of Zerahiah, and with him 200 men.

⁵Of the descendants of Shecaniah, the son of Jahaziel, and with him 300 men.^b

⁶Of the descendants of Adin, Ebed son of Jonathan, and with him fifty men.

⁷Of the descendants of Elam, Jeshaiah son of Athaliah, and with him seventy men.

⁸Of the descendants of Shephatiah, Zebadiah son of Michael, and with him eighty men.

⁹Of the descendants of Joab, Obadiah son of Jehiel, and with him 218 men.

¹⁰Of the descendants of Shelomith, the son of Josiphiah, and with him 160 men.^c

¹¹Of the descendants of Bebai, Zechariah son of Bebai, and with him twenty-eight men.

¹²Of the descendants of Azgad, Johanan son of Hakkatan, and with him 110 men.

¹³Of the descendants of Adonikam, the last ones, whose names were Eliphelet, Jeiel and Shemaiah, and with them sixty men.

¹⁴Of the descendants of Bigvai, Uthai and Zaccur, and with them seventy men.^d

Levites found and a fast at the Ahava canal

¹⁵I assembled them at the canal that flows toward Ahava, and we camped there for three days. When I reviewed the people and the priests, I found no Levites there. ¹⁶So I sent for Eliezer, Ariel, Shemaiah, Elnathan, Jarib, Elnathan, Nathan, Zechariah and Meshullam, who were leaders, and for Joiarib and Elnathan, who were teachers. ¹⁷I sent them to Iddo, the leader at the place called Casiphia, and told them what to say to Iddo and his kinsmen, the temple servants at Casiphia, so that they would bring us ministers for the house of our God.^{ef 18}Because the good hand of our God was on us, they brought us a man of insight, Sherebiah, from the descendants of Mahli son of Levi, son of Israel, together with his sons and his kinsmen, eighteen men,^{g 19}and Hashabiah, together with Jeshaiah of the descendants of Merari, with his kinsmen and their sons, twenty men,

²⁰and also 220 of the temple servants whom David and the officials had given to assist the Levites. All of them were listed by name. ²¹Then I proclaimed a fast there by the Ahava canal, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask him for a safe journey for us, our children and all our possessions. ²²I was ashamed to ask the king for soldiers and horsemen to protect us from enemies on the road, since we had told the king, “The hand of our God is on all who seek him, for their good, but his power and his anger are against all who forsake him.” ²³So we fasted and prayed to our God about this, and he listened to our prayer. ²⁴Then I set apart twelve of the leading priests, together with Sherebiah, Hashabiah and ten of their kinsmen.^{h 25}I weighed out to them the silver, the gold and the vessels, the contribution for the house of our God that the king, his counselors, his officials and all the Israelites there had given. ²⁶I weighed out into their hands about 24 tons of silver, silver vessels weighing about 3 3/4 tons, about 3 3/4 tons of gold,^{i 27}and twenty gold bowls worth 1,000 darics, and two vessels of fine polished bronze, as precious as gold. ²⁸And I said to them, “You are holy to the LORD, and the vessels are holy. The silver and the gold are a freewill offering to the LORD, the God of your ancestors. ²⁹Guard them carefully until you weigh them out before the leading priests and Levites and the heads of the families of Israel in Jerusalem, in the storerooms of the house of the LORD.” ³⁰So the priests and the Levites took charge of the silver, gold and vessels that had been weighed out, to bring them to Jerusalem to the house of our God.

³¹On the twelfth day of the first month we set out from the Ahava canal to go to Jerusalem. The hand of our God was on us, and he rescued us from enemies and from ambushes along the way. ³²We arrived in Jerusalem and stayed there three days. ³³On the fourth day, in the house of our God, the silver, the gold and the vessels were weighed out into the hands of Meremoth son of Uriah, the priest. With him were Eleazar son of Phinehas and the Levites Jozabad son of Jeshua and Noadiah son of Binnui, ³⁴everything by number and by weight, and the total weight was recorded at that time.

³⁵The returned exiles who had come from captivity offered burnt offerings to the God of Israel: twelve bulls for all Israel, ninety-six rams, seventy-seven lambs, and twelve male goats as a sin offering. All this was a burnt offering to the LORD.

³⁶They also delivered the king’s orders to the royal satraps and to the governors of the province Beyond the River, who then gave their support to the people and to the house of God.