Permission to Rebuild

5Then I said to the king, "If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor before you, that you would send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' graves, so that I may rebuild it."

6Then the king said to me, while the queen was sitting beside him, “How long will your journey be, and when will you return?” So it pleased the king to send me, and I gave him a time.

7Then I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, let letters be given to me for the governors Beyond the River, so that they may let me pass through until I come to Judah.”

8and a letter to Asaph, the keeper of the king’s forest, that he should give me timber to make beams for the gates of the fortress by the temple, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I will occupy. And the king gave them to me, according to the good hand of my God upon me.