Ezra 4:3-5
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
3 But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of ancestral houses of Israel answered them, “It is not your responsibility to build with us a house for our God, but we alone must build it for the Lord, the God of Israel, as Cyrus king of Persia has commanded us.” 4 Thereupon the local inhabitants[a] discouraged the people of Judah and frightened them off from building. 5 They also bribed counselors to work against them and to frustrate their plans during all the years of Cyrus, king of Persia, and even into the reign of Darius,[b] king of Persia.
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- 4:4 Local inhabitants: lit., “the people of the land.”
- 4:5 Darius: Darius I (522–486 B.C.). The Temple-building narrative continues in v. 24. In between (vv. 6–23) is a series of notices about opposition to the returned exiles voiced at the Persian court in the early fifth century B.C., after the Temple had been built.
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