And heads of the fathers of Judah and Benjamin rise, and the priests and the Levites, even every one whose spirit God hath waked, to go up to build the house of Jehovah, that `is' in Jerusalem;
Blessed `is' Jehovah, God of our fathers, who hath given such a thing as this in the heart of the king, to beautify the house of Jehovah that `is' in Jerusalem,
and they say to me, `Those left, who have been left of the captivity there in the province, `are' in great evil, and in reproach, and the wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burnt with fire.'
and I say unto them, `Ye are seeing the evil that we are in, in that Jerusalem `is' waste, and its gates have been burnt with fire; come and we build the wall of Jerusalem, and we are not any more a reproach.'
and say to the king, `Let the king to the age live! wherefore should not my face be sad, when the city, the place of the graves of my fathers, `is' a waste, and its gates have been consumed with fire?'
and saith before his brethren and the force of Samaria, yea, he saith, `What `are' the weak Jews doing? are they left to themselves? do they sacrifice? do they complete in a day? do they revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish? -- and they burnt!'
Because Jehovah loveth Jacob, And hath fixed again on Israel, And given them rest on their own land, And joined hath been the sojourner to them, And they have been admitted to the house of Jacob.
Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, and call to her, That her warfare hath been completed, That accepted hath been her punishment, That she hath received from the hand of Jehovah Double for all her sins.
For Jehovah hath comforted Zion, He hath comforted all her wastes, And He setteth her wilderness as Eden, And her desert as a garden of Jehovah, Joy, yea, gladness is found in her, Confession, and the voice of song.
`For thus said Jehovah, Surely at the fulness of Babylon -- seventy years -- I inspect you, and have established towards you My good word, to bring you back unto this place.
Thus said Jehovah: Lo, I turn back `to' the captivity of the tents of Jacob, And his dwelling places I pity, And the city hath been built on its heap, And the palace according to its ordinance remaineth.
`O Lord, according to all Thy righteous acts, let turn back, I pray Thee, Thine anger and Thy fury from Thy city Jerusalem, Thy holy mount, for by our sins, and by the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Thy people `are' for a reproach to all our neighbours;
And she riseth, she and her daughters-in-law, and turneth back from the fields of Moab, for she hath heard in the fields of Moab that God hath looked after His people, -- to give to them bread.