MKJV(i)
2 then they came to Zerubbabel and to the chief of the fathers, and said to them, Let us build with you, for we seek your God, even as you. And we have sacrificed to him since the days of Esar-haddon king of Assyria, who brought us up here.
3 But Zerubbabel, and Jeshua, and the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel, said to them, You have nothing to do with us to build a house to our God. But we ourselves together will build to Jehovah, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us.
4 Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building.
5 And they hired counselors against them to frustrate their purpose all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia.
6 And in the reign of Ahasuerus, in the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against the people of Judah and Jerusalem.
7 And in the days of Artaxerxes, Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel and the rest of their companions, wrote to Artaxerxes king of Persia. And the letter was written in the Syrian tongue, and interpreted in the Syrian tongue.
8 Rehum the chancellor and Shimshai the scribe wrote a letter against Jerusalem to Artaxerxes the king in this way.
9 Then Rehum the chancellor and Shimshai the scribe, and the rest of their companions, the judges, and the emissaries, the consuls, the officials, the Erechites, the Babylonians, the men of Susa, that is, the Elamites,
10 and the rest of the nations whom the great and noble Asnappar brought over and set in the cities of Samaria, and the rest of the province Beyond the River, and now,