Four named Persian kings, Cyrus, Ahasuerus, Artaxerxes, and Darius, preside while adversaries pressure Judah to abandon the temple’s reconstruction, ending in a royal order that halts work in Jerusalem.
Full sung version coming soon.
Lyrics
When the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard That the children of captivity were building a temple to the LORD They came near to Zerubbabel
Let us build with you, they said For we seek your God as you do And we have been sacrificing to him Since the days of Esar Haddon
But Zerubbabel and the rest said to them You have nothing to do with us But we ourselves together will build to the LORD As King Cyrus has commanded
Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah They troubled them in building They hired counsellors against them To frustrate their purpose
All the days of Cyrus king of Persia Even until the reign of Darius king of Persia They wrote accusations against the inhabitants of Judah And against Jerusalem
Rehum the chancellor and Shimshai the scribe Wrote a letter against Jerusalem To Artaxerxes the king And he sent an answer
The work of this house of God was stopped Until the word came from the king
Listen
Ezra 4 sung by Psalm Selah. The whole Bible, one chapter at a time.