Esdras 8

¹ Now these are the heads of their fathers, and this is the genealogy of those who went up with me from Babylon, in the reign of Artaxerxes the king:

² of the sons of Phinehas, Gershom; of the sons of Ithamar, Daniel; of the sons of David, Hattush;

³ of the sons of Shecaniah, of the sons of Parosh, Zechariah, and with him were reckoned by genealogy of the males a hundred and fifty;

⁴ of the sons of Pahath-moab, Eliehoenai the son of Zerahiah, and with him two hundred males;

⁵ of the sons of Shecaniah, the son of Jahaziel, and with him three hundred males;

⁶ and of the sons of Adin, Ebed the son of Jonathan, and with him fifty males;

⁷ and of the sons of Elam, Jeshaiah the son of Athaliah, and with him seventy males;

⁸ and of the sons of Shephatiah, Zebadiah the son of Michael, and with him eighty males;

⁹ of the sons of Joab, Obadiah the son of Jehiel, and with him two hundred and eighteen males;

¹⁰ and of the sons of Shelomith, the son of Josiphiah, and with him a hundred and sixty males;

¹¹ and of the sons of Bebai, Zechariah the son of Bebai, and with him twenty-eight males;

¹² and of the sons of Azgad, Johanan the son of Hakkatan, and with him a hundred and ten males;

¹³ And of the sons of Adonikam, [who were] the last, and these are their names: Eliphelet, Jeuel, and Shemaiah, and with them sixty males;

¹⁴ and of the sons of Bigvai, Uthai and Zabbud, and with them seventy males.

¹⁵ And I gathered them together to the river that runs to Ahava, and there we encamped three days. And I viewed the people, and the priests, and found there none of the sons of Levi.

¹⁶ Then I sent for Eliezer, for Ariel, for Shemaiah, and for Elnathan, and for Jarib, and for Elnathan, and for Nathan, and for Zechariah, and for Meshullam, chief men, also for Joiarib, and for Elnathan, who were teachers.

¹⁷ And I sent them forth to Iddo the chief at the place Casiphia, and I told them what they should say to Iddo, [and] his brothers the Nethinim, at the place Casiphia, that they should bring to us ministers for the house of our God.

¹⁸ And according to the good hand of our God upon us they brought us a man of discretion, of the sons of Mahli, the son of Levi, the son of Israel, and Sherebiah, with his sons and his brothers, eighteen,

¹⁹ and Hashabiah, and with him Jeshaiah of the sons of Merari, his brothers and their sons, twenty,

²⁰ and of the Nethinim, whom David and the rulers had given for the service of the Levites, two hundred and twenty Nethinim. All of them were mentioned by name.

²¹ Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek of him a straight way for us, and for our little ones, and for all our substance.

²² For I was ashamed to ask of the king a band of soldiers and horsemen to help us against the enemy in the way, because we had spoken to the king, saying, The hand of our God is upon all those who seek him, for good, but his power an

²³ So we fasted and besought our God for this, and he was entreated by us.

²⁴ Then I set apart twelve of the chiefs of the priests, even Sherebiah, Hashabiah, and ten of their brothers with them,

²⁵ and weighed to them the silver, and the gold, and the vessels, even the offering for the house of our God, which the king, and his counselors, and his rulers, and all Israel there present, had offered.

²⁶ I weighed into their hand six hundred and fifty talents of silver, and a hundred talents of silver vessels, a hundred talents of gold,

²⁷ and twenty bowls of gold, of a thousand darics, and two vessels of fine bright brass, precious as gold.

²⁸ And I said to them, Ye are holy to LORD, and the vessels are holy, and the silver and the gold are a freewill-offering to LORD, the God of your fathers.

²⁹ Watch ye, and keep them, until ye weigh them before the chiefs of the priests and the Levites, and the rulers of the fathers' of Israel, at Jerusalem, in the chambers of the house of LORD.

³⁰ So the priests and the Levites received the weight of the silver and the gold, and the vessels, to bring them to Jerusalem to the house of our God.

³¹ Then we departed from the river Ahava on the twelfth [day] of the first month, to go to Jerusalem. And the hand of our God was upon us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy and the ambushment by the way.

³² And we came to Jerusalem, and abode there three days.

³³ And on the fourth day the silver and the gold and the vessels were weighed in the house of our God into the hand of Meremoth the son of Uriah the priest, and with him was Eleazar the son of Phinehas, and with them was Jozabad the s

³⁴ the whole by number and by weight. And all the weight was written at that time.

³⁵ The sons of the captivity, who came out of exile, offered burnt-offerings to the God of Israel, twelve bullocks for all Israel, ninety-six rams, seventy-seven lambs, twelve he-goats for a sin-offering. All this was a burnt-offering

³⁶ And they delivered the king's commissions to the king's satraps, and to the governors beyond the River. And they furthered the people and the house of God.