Now let it now be known to the sovereign that, if this city is built and the walls completed, they are not going to pay tax, excise, or toll, and cause the revenue of the sovereign to suffer loss.
We further inform you that there is no authority to impose tax, excise, or toll on any of the priests and Lĕwites, singers, gatekeepers, Nethinim, and servants of this House of Elah.
“And its rich yield goes to the sovereigns You have set over us, because of our sins. And they rule over our bodies and our livestock at their pleasure, and we are in great distress.
“For you deceived yourselves when you sent me to יהוה your Elohim, saying, ‘Pray for us to יהוה our Elohim, and according to all that יהוה your Elohim says, so declare to us and we shall do it.’
He said, “Yes.” And when he came into the house, יהושע spoke to him first, saying, “What do you think, Shim‛on? From whom do the sovereigns of the earth take toll or tax, from their own sons or from the strangers?”
And in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Yehuḏah, and Herodes district ruler of Galil, and his brother Philip district ruler of Yetur and the country of Trachonitis, and Lusanias district ruler of Aḇilene,
while Sha’ul said in his own defence, “Neither against the Torah of the Yehuḏim, nor against the Set-apart Place, nor against Caesar did I commit any sin.”
“After him, Yehuḏah of Galil rose up in the days of the census, and drew away many people after him. He also perished, and all who obeyed him were scattered.