1 Esdras 2:24–30

²⁴Wherefore now we do declare unto thee, O lord the king, that if this city be built again, and the walls thereof set up anew, thou shalt from henceforth have no passage into ⁱCoelosyria and Phenice.

²⁵Then the king wrote back again to Rathumus the ^hstorywriter, ^lto Beeltethmus, ^lto Semellius the ^gscribe, and to the rest that were in commission, and dwellers in Samaria and Syria and Phenice, after this manner; ²⁶I have read the epistle which ye have sent unto me: therefore I commanded to make diligent search, and it hath been found that that city was from the beginning practising against kings; ²⁷and the men therein were given to rebellion and war: and that mighty kings and fierce were in Jerusalem, who reigned and exacted tributes in ⁱCoelosyria and Phenice. ²⁸Now therefore I have commanded to hinder those men from building the city, and heed to be taken that there be no more done in it; ²⁹and that those wicked workers proceed no further to the annoyance of kings. ³⁰Then king Artaxerxes his letters being read, Rathumus, and Semellius the ^gscribe, and the rest that were in commission with them, removing in haste towards Jerusalem with a troop of horsemen and a multitude of people in battle array, began to hinder the builders; and the building of the temple in Jerusalem ceased until the second year of the reign of Darius king of the Persians.

III.