Ezra 4:1-3

New Life Version

People of the Land Try to Keep the Jews from Building

4 Now those who hated Judah and Benjamin heard that the people had returned from Babylon and were building a house of worship to the Lord God of Israel. ² They came to Zerubbabel and the heads of the family groups and said to them, “Let us build with you. For we worship your God as you do. We have been giving gifts to Him since the days of King Esar-haddon of Assyria, who brought us here.” ³ But Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the rest of the heads of the family groups of Israel said to them, “You have nothing to do with us in building a house to our God. But we alone will build to the Lord God of Israel, as King Cyrus of Persia has told us to do.”