Adversaries offer to build; leaders refuse

1The adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the sons of the exile were building a temple for Yahweh, the God of Israel.

2Then they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of the fathers’ houses and said to them, “Let us build with you, for like you we seek your God, and we have been sacrificing to him since the days of Esar-haddon king of Assyria, who brought us up here.”

3But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of the fathers’ houses of Israel said to them, “You have no part with us in building a house for our God, for we alone will build it for Yahweh, the God of Israel, just as King Cyrus, the king of Persia, commanded us.”