And there went up some of the children of Israel, and of the children of the priests, and of the children of the Levites, and of the singing men, and of the porters, and of the Nathinites to Jerusalem, in the seventh year of Artaxerxes the king.
For upon the first day of the first month he began to go up from Babylon; and on the first day of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem, according to the good hand of his God upon him.
For we are bondmen, and in our bondage our God hath not forsaken us, but hath extended mercy upon us before the king of the Persians, to give us life, and to set up the house of our God, and rebuild the desolations thereof, and to give us a fence in Juda and Jerusalem.
Then all the men of Juda and Benjamin gathered themselves together to Jerusalem within three days, in the ninth month, the twentieth day of the month. And all the people sat in the street of the house of God, trembling, because of the sin and the rain.