These are now the heads of their fathers’ houses, and this is the genealogy of them that went up with me from Babylon, in the reign of Artaxerxes the king.
These likewise cast lots even as their brethren the sons of Aaron in the presence of David the king, and Zadok, and Ahimelech, and the heads of the fathers’ houses of the priests and Levites; the principal fathers did even as their younger brethren.
And his brethren, men of valor, were two thousand and seven hundred heads of the fathers' houses, whom king David made officials over the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh, for every matter pertaining to God, and affairs of the king.
So all Israel were recorded by genealogies; and, behold, they were written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah, who were carried away to Babylon for their transgression.
Then rose up the heads of the fathers’ houses of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests, and the Levites, with all them whose spirit God had stirred, to go up to build the house of the LORD which is in Jerusalem.
Who came with Zerubbabel: Jeshua, Nehemiah, Seraiah, Reelaiah, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mizpar, Bigvai, Rehum, Baanah. The number of the men of the people of Israel:
These sought their listing among those that were reckoned by genealogy, but they were not found: therefore were they, as defiled, excluded from the priesthood.
I make a decree, that all they of the people of Israel, and of his priests and Levites, in my realm, who are minded of their own freewill to go up to Jerusalem, may go with you.
And has extended mercy unto me before the king, and his counselors, and before all the king’s mighty princes. And I was strengthened as the hand of the LORD my God was upon me, and I gathered together out of Israel leading men to go up with me.
This Ezra went up from Babylon; and he was a skilled scribe in the law of Moses, which the LORD God of Israel had given: and the king granted him all his request, according to the hand of the LORD his God upon him.
And there went up some of the children of Israel, and of the priests, and the Levites, and the singers, and the gatekeepers, and the Nethinim, unto Jerusalem, in the seventh year of Artaxerxes the king.