2 JOHN

¹From the church leader.
To a very special woman and her children. I truly love all of you, and so does everyone else who knows the truth. ²We love you because the truth is now in our hearts, and it will be there forever.
³I pray that God the Father and Jesus Christ his Son will be kind and merciful to us! May they give us peace and truth and love.

Truth and Love

⁴I was very glad to learn that some of your children are obeying the truth, as the Father told us to do. ⁵Dear friend, I am not writing to tell you and your children to do something you have not done before. I am writing to tell you to love each other, which is the first thing you were told to do. ⁶Love means that we do what God tells us. And from the beginning, he told you to love him.
⁷Many liars have gone out into the world. These deceitful liars are saying that Jesus Christ did not have a truly human body. But they are liars and the enemies of Christ. ⁸So be sure not to lose what we have worked for. If you do, you won't be given your full reward. ⁹Don't keep changing what you were taught about Christ, or else God will no longer be with you. But if you hold firmly to what you were taught, both the Father and the Son will be with you. ¹⁰If people won't agree to this teaching, don't welcome them into your home or even greet them. ¹¹Greeting them is the same as taking part in their evil deeds.

Final Greetings

¹²I have much more to tell you, but I don't want to write it with pen and ink. I want to come and talk to you in person, because that will make us really happy.
¹³Greetings from the children of your very special sister.

Ezra 5 ¹Then the LORD God of Israel told the prophets Haggai and Zechariah to speak in his name to the people of Judah and Jerusalem. And they did. ²So Zerubbabel the governor and Joshua the priest urged the people to start working on the temple again, and God's prophets encouraged them.
³Governor Tattenai of Western Province and his assistant Shethar Bozenai got together with some of their officials. Then they went to Jerusalem and said to the people, "Who told you to rebuild this temple? ⁴Give us the names of the workers!"
⁵But God was looking after the Jewish leaders. So the governor and his group decided not to make the people stop working on the temple until they could report to Darius and get his advice.
⁶Governor Tattenai, Shethar Bozenai, and their advisors sent a report to Darius, ⁷which said:

King Darius, we wish you the best! ⁸We went to Judah, where the temple of the great God is being built with huge stones and wooden beams set in the walls. Everyone is working hard, and the building is going up fast.

⁹We asked those in charge to tell us who gave them permission to rebuild the temple. ¹⁰We also asked for the names of their leaders, so that we could write them down for you.

¹¹They claimed to be servants of the God who rules heaven and earth. And they said they were rebuilding the temple that was built many years ago by one of Israel's greatest kings.

¹²We were told that their people had made God angry, and he let them be captured by Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king who took them away as captives to Babylonia. Nebuchadnezzar tore down their temple, ^13-15took its gold and silver articles, and put them in the temple of his own god in Babylon.

They also said that during the first year Cyrus was king of Babylonia, he gave orders for God's temple to be rebuilt in Jerusalem where it had stood before. So Cyrus appointed Sheshbazzar governor of Judah and sent these gold and silver articles for him to put in the temple. ¹⁶Sheshbazzar then went to Jerusalem and laid the foundation for the temple, and the work is still going on.

¹⁷Your Majesty, please have someone look up the old records in Babylonia and find out if King Cyrus really did give orders to rebuild God's temple in Jerusalem. We will do whatever you think we should.

King Cyrus' Order Is Rediscovered

Ezra 6 King Darius ordered someone to go through the old records kept in Babylonia. ²Finally, a scroll was found in Ecbatana, the capital of Media Province, and it said:

This official record will show ³that in the first year Cyrus was king, he gave orders to rebuild God's temple in Jerusalem, so that sacrifices and offerings could be presented there. It is to be built ninety feet high and ninety feet wide, ⁴with one row of wooden beams for each three rows of large stones. The royal treasury will pay for everything. ⁵Then return to their proper places the gold and silver things that Nebuchadnezzar took from the temple and brought to Babylonia.

King Darius Orders the Work To Continue

⁶King Darius sent this message:

Governor Tattenai of Western Province and Shethar Bozenai, you and your advisors must stay away from the temple. ⁷Let the Jewish governor and leaders rebuild it where it stood before. And stop slowing them down!

⁸Starting right now, I am ordering you to help the leaders by paying their expenses from the tax money collected in Western Province. ⁹And don't fail to let the priests in Jerusalem have whatever they need each day so they can offer sacrifices to the God of heaven. Give them young bulls, rams, sheep, as well as wheat, salt, wine, and olive oil. ¹⁰I want them to be able to offer pleasing sacrifices to God and to pray for me and my family.

¹¹If any of you don't obey this order, a wooden beam will be taken from your house and sharpened on one end. Then it will be driven through your body, and your house will be torn down and turned into a garbage dump. ¹²I ask the God who is worshiped in Jerusalem to destroy any king or nation who tries either to change what I have said or to tear down his temple. I, Darius, give these orders, and I expect them to be followed carefully.

The Temple Is Dedicated

¹³Governor Tattenai, Shethar Bozenai, and their advisors carefully obeyed King Darius. ¹⁴With great success the Jewish leaders continued working on the temple, while Haggai and Zechariah encouraged them by their preaching. And so, the temple was completed at the command of the God of Israel and by the orders of kings Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes of Persia. ¹⁵On the third day of the month of Adar in the sixth year of the rule of Darius, the temple was finished.
¹⁶The people of Israel, the priests, the Levites, and everyone else who had returned from exile were happy and celebrated as they dedicated God's temple. ¹⁷One hundred bulls, two hundred rams, and four hundred lambs were offered as sacrifices at the dedication. Also twelve goats were sacrificed as sin offerings for the twelve tribes of Israel. ¹⁸Then the priests and Levites were assigned their duties in God's temple in Jerusalem, according to the instructions Moses had written.

The Passover

¹⁹Everyone who had returned from exile celebrated Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month. ²⁰The priests and Levites had gone through a ceremony to make themselves acceptable to lead in worship. Then some of them killed Passover lambs for those who had returned, including the other priests and themselves.
²¹The sacrifices were eaten by the Israelites who had returned and by the neighboring people who had given up the sinful customs of other nations in order to worship the LORD God of Israel. ²²For seven days they celebrated the Festival of Thin Bread. Everyone was happy because the LORD God of Israel had made sure that the king of Assyria would be kind to them and help them build the temple.

Psalm 93
The LORD Is King

¹Our LORD, you are King!
Majesty and power are your royal robes.
You put the world in place, and it will never be moved.
²You have always ruled, and you are eternal.

³The ocean is roaring, LORD! The sea is pounding hard.
⁴Its mighty waves are majestic,
but you are more majestic, and you rule over all.
⁵Your decisions are firm,
and your temple will always be beautiful and holy.