Ezra 4:17–24

¹⁷King Artaxerxes sent this answer:

To Rehum the governor and Shimshai the secretary, to all their fellow workers living in Samaria, and to those in other places in Trans-Euphrates.

Greetings.

¹⁸The letter you sent to us has been translated and read to me. ¹⁹I ordered the records to be searched, and it was done. We found that Jerusalem has a history of disobedience to kings and has been a place of problems and trouble. ²⁰Jerusalem has had powerful kings who have ruled over the whole area of Trans-Euphrates, and taxes of all kinds have been paid to them. ²¹Now, give an order for those men to stop work. The city of Jerusalem will not be rebuilt until I say so. ²²Make sure you do this, because if they continue, it will hurt the government.

²³A copy of the letter that King Artaxerxes sent was read to Rehum and Shimshai the secretary and the others. Then they quickly went to the Jewish people in Jerusalem and forced them to stop building.

²⁴So the work on the Temple of God in Jerusalem stopped until the second year Darius was king of Persia.