2 Kings 25:8-12

On the seventh day of the fifth month, in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard, an official of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. He set fire to the temple of the LORD, the royal palace and all the houses of Jerusalem. Every important building he burned down. The whole Babylonian army, under the commander of the imperial guard, broke down the walls around Jerusalem. Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard carried into exile the people who remained in the city, along with the rest of the populace and those who had gone over to the king of Babylon. But the commander left behind some of the poorest people of the land to work the vineyards and fields.

So what we have (and this is just to tell you where we are in the Old Testament) the Northern Kingdom wiped out and carried into Assyria and the Southern Kingdom is now wiped out. The Temple has been destroyed along with all the important cities. If you look at the maps on CNN today, Judah has been carried into Babylon, between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Babylon was north of where Baghdad is today. That’s what we’re seeing over and over on the news with the War in Iraq.

Nebuzaradan carried the Jews from Judah over to Babylon. The Babylonian World Empire is in power at this time. Assyria was further north. Between the time that Assyria took away the Northern Kingdom, the Babylonians defeated the Assyrians. We’ll see that Mede-Persia, the Persian World Empire will come in and defeat the Babylonians. That’s what we’ll get to this morning in Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther.

What I want you to see is that we’re close to the chronological end of the Old Testament. This is happening around 586 BC. We know that Bethlehem, a little town near Jerusalem, is where Christ will be born. We’re 586 years away from that. But where are the descendants of Abraham from whom Christ is to be born? They are not here. They are over in Babylon and Assyria. God says (just like when they were in Egypt) that He has to get them back to Israel. That’s what Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther are about. From a chronological point of view, Esther occurs between Ezra and Nehemiah.

In Ezra, we will see the rebuilding of the Temple. We just read that it was destroyed. We need a Temple there for when Jesus comes. He took care of the money changers at the Temple. He went to the Temple like He was supposed to. So the Temple that is being rebuilt is the one that Jesus will visit when He grows up. The walls of Jerusalem will be rebuilt by Nehemiah. By the time Christ comes, we have the Temple and the walls rebuilt by the Jews who return. In 2^nd Kings, everybody was moved over to Assyria and Babylon. In Ezra and Nehemiah, not everyone, but a large number of them return to resettle the Land. From around 470-430 BC, everyone is back, the Temple and walls have been rebuilt, and then we have the "quiet time" between the Old and New Testaments. That’s where chronological history ends.

Then we don’t have anything in the canonized Bible from 430 BC until zero BC when we have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (the four gospels containing the story of Christ). Does everybody understand that? We are at the end of the Old Testament. The roughly 430 years are silent years. When I say "silent," they’re really not quite silent. There is nothing in the canonized Bible but there were other books written during this period. I’ve mentioned them before. We can learn a little about what was going on during this time. None of that is canonized. None of that is accepted as God’s Word. They are more historical books. You can read about it. You can read about the time between the Testaments. This means that when we finish Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, we’ll study Job. This starts our looking at books that were written during times we’ve already studied. I think I’ve made this point over and over.

There are two prophets that I want to mention at this point (right when the Southern Kingdom ended): Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Most people do not want to read Jeremiah and Ezekiel. They are depressing. They are full of weeping and crying. We’re going to read a few excerpts from them to illustrate this.

What would you think if you were a prophet of God and you knew that we should have this "Promised Land" but you saw all the sins of the people? What were the sins of the people? Idol worship. Asherah poles. Child sacrifice. All these things were going on. God judged them and had this ungodly, pagan nation come over, wipe them out, and execute His judgment. That speaks volumes for what’s going on right now with the United States over in Iraq. It was because of God’s judgment that these nations attacked Israel and Judah. He permitted them to come over and wipe out the very people that He had promised to protect and take care of. They had rejected God. He said, "If I don’t do this, they will continue going away from me." In other words, God keeps revealing Himself and revealing Himself, but there comes a time when He says, "That’s it. I can’t go any further. These people will never respond to me. I don’t care what I do—I could show up on their doorstep and perform all the miracles in the world. They would look me in the eyes and say, ‘I still don’t believe you. I still reject you.’" So God said, "I need to judge them." He allowed them to be taken captive by Assyria and Babylon and now we’re going to see them return from captivity in Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther.

Some of you have a timeline in your Bibles. You can see that they began rebuilding the Temple in 536 BC. Don’t spend a lot of time worrying about exact years—it’s more the overall concept that’s important. They start to rebuild the Temple but face some opposition. We’ll read about that. They need some encouragement to continue. They finally finish the Temple in 516 BC so it took about 20 years to rebuild the Temple.

We’re also going to read that the Temple was not as great as Solomon’s original Temple. Remember that David wanted to build the Temple. God said, "You are a man of war and blood. I will not allow you to build my Temple but I will allow your son to." Solomon built a really beautiful, fantastic, ornate Temple. Who destroyed that Temple? We just read it. The Babylonians destroyed that Temple. So at this point, there is no center for religious sacrifice for the Jews. Remember that the whole sacrificial system for the Jews involved the Holy Place, the Most Holy Place, etc. within the Temple. They were to present a sacrifice every year and have atonement. If you were a Jew and the Temple has been destroyed, what do you do? You’re out of luck. "We have to build the Temple again to have our ritual sacrifices." So that has to happen.

One other thing I wanted to mention: when you read Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, you also need to read Haggai and Zechariah. These are small, minor prophets. We probably won’t be able to get to them when we study the others, so I’m going to try to cover them this morning. Lastly, the prophet during Nehemiah was Malachi. These are all prophets that we’ll see named in Ezra. It will say, "These prophets encouraged us to continue the work on the Temple."

Let’s go to Ezra, chapter 1. There’s a gentleman by the name of "Zerubbabel." He’s the one who actually comes over from Babylon to begin the reconstruction of the Temple.

Ezra 1:1a

In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia,

Persia has now defeated Babylon and become the World Empire. You can read about this in your secular history books.

Ezra 1:1b

in order to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah,

There’s a reference to Jeremiah, the prophet. If you read Jeremiah, you’ll see that he said, "You’re going to be defeated and thrown into captivity but God will bring you back."

Ezra 1:1c-2

the LORD moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and to put it in writing: "Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.

Now how’s that? Here’s a foreign king saying, "The God of heaven has assigned me to do this." If you like the study of proof that God’s Word is true, here is an example of it. Verse 2 says, "The Lord, the God of heaven." That’s the first time in the Bible (the Old Testament) that God is referred to as "the God of heaven."

Jeremiah 25:1-3

The word came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, which was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. So Jeremiah the prophet said to all the people of Judah and to all those living in Jerusalem: For twenty-three years--from the thirteenth year of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah until this very day--the word of the LORD has come to me and I have spoken to you again and again, but you have not listened.

That’s what I told you. The people would not listen. They rejected it.

Jeremiah 25:4-11

And though the LORD has sent all his servants the prophets to you again and again, you have not listened or paid any attention. They said, "Turn now, each of you, from your evil ways and your evil practices, and you can stay in the land the LORD gave to you and your fathers for ever and ever. Do not follow other gods to serve and worship them; do not provoke me to anger with what your hands have made. Then I will not harm you." "But you did not listen to me," declares the LORD, "and you have provoked me with what your hands have made, and you have brought harm to yourselves." Therefore the LORD Almighty says this: "Because you have not listened to my words, I will summon all the peoples of the north and my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon," declares the LORD, "and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all the surrounding nations. I will completely destroy them and make them an object of horror and scorn, and an everlasting ruin. I will banish from them the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of bride and bridegroom, the sound of millstones and the light of the lamp. This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

Do you understand who he’s talking about? He’s talking about the Southern Kingdom, Judah, being carried into captivity for seventy years. "There will be no joy, no songs, no gladness, and no voices of the bride and bridegroom." In other words, it’s a very depressing, terrible time to be a Jew or Israelite at this point. Does everybody understand that? Everything has been taken away from you. Your religious source (the Temple, the walls, Jerusalem, etc.) has been taken away. It’s not just your houses and homes but everything has been taken away from you. You’ve been taken into captivity in Babylon. What do you have with you? All you have are your memories. You don’t have anything else.

Jeremiah 25:12-14

"But when the seventy years are fulfilled, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation, the land of the Babylonians, for their guilt," declares the LORD, "and will make it desolate forever. I will bring upon that land all the things I have spoken against it, all that are written in this book and prophesied by Jeremiah against all the nations. They themselves will be enslaved by many nations and great kings; I will repay them according to their deeds and the work of their hands."

Amen. Praise the Lord. This is what we’re seeing today.

That’s a summary of Jeremiah. It gives you an idea about Jeremiah. When you read Jeremiah, you’ll be reading about the end of the Southern Kingdom and the Babylonian Captivity.

I know this is skipping around but I want to show you some things. Go to Psalm 137. Psalms is right in the middle of the Bible. It’s written by different people—not just David. David wrote most of them but another person wrote Psalm 137. Does anyone know who wrote Psalm 119 which is the longest Psalm there is? Ezra. But I want you to look at Psalm 137. This is a shocker. This Psalm will be a shocker to you. This is one of those that you don’t hear preached very often.

Psalm 137:1

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion.

Now you understand the setting for this Psalm. Where are they? They’re in Babylon reminiscing. When you read the Bible, you can put a picture together of what was going on in peoples’ lives and what they were thinking (especially during the Old Testament).

In this case, what happened was that the Israelites were used to build canals off the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. You will find the word "canals" used other places in the Bible. I’m not making this up. They worked on digging these canals for irrigation and water transport. That’s what the Israelites were working on while enslaved. You can find all this in history books. We don’t find it in the Bible (other than references to rivers and canals).

Remember that we have covered Zion. A lot of people don’t know the source of "Zion." It was the hilltop fortress where David defeated the Jebusites in Jerusalem. After David took over both nations, he traveled from Hebron to Jerusalem and defeated the Jebusites at Zion. It became Zion, the City of David. So when they say, "Zion," they’re thinking of Jerusalem and what David did.

Psalm 137:2-3

There on the poplars we hung our harps, for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"

So the Israelites are there. They don’t feel like singing. They’re weeping. They’re crying. They’re bitter over all that’s happened to them. I want you to feel this. They’re upset about what happened. They recognize their sin and that God has judged them. Who are their tormentors? The Babylonians said, "We want to hear a song." Something implied here is that the Babylonians knew about their singing. How could they? In Jerusalem, at least once a year, there was a great gathering of Jews with great rejoicing. It doesn’t take you long, if you read some of the other Psalms, you’ll see "Make a new song unto the Lord," "Sing unto the Lord all the earth," etc. As you read through there, you’ll read about all this singing. There was a great celebration. The world had heard these songs and heard about these celebrations. So the tormentors are saying, "Hey. Sing a song of Zion. I’ve heard about these. Sing them." That’s what they’re talking about here.

Psalm 137:4

How can we sing the songs of the LORD while in a foreign land?

Can you see that? How are their hearts? Broken. They are heart-broken. Can you feel this? When you’ve had some really bad times in your life, you come to church and start to sing a song half-heartedly. Your heart’s not in it. Do you know what I mean? When you’re not feeling well, how easy is it to sing? It’s not. Something’s been robbed. Something’s been taken away from you. That’s what they’re feeling here.

Psalm 137:5-6

If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget [its skill]. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy.

What is the Psalmist saying here? I don’t ever want to forget Zion, Jerusalem, and what was going on there. I will never forget it.

Psalm 137:7

Remember, O LORD, what the Edomites did on the day Jerusalem fell. "Tear it down," they cried, "tear it down to its foundations!"

We didn’t study it, but the Edomites are the ones who stood around, cheering while the Babylonians were burning Jerusalem. They were aiding the Babylonians by providing food and support. They were saying, "Yeah! Burn it to the ground!"

Psalm 137:8

O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us--

That’s called revenge. One more thing, though—read the last verse…

Psalm 137:9

he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.

Secular history will tell you that’s exactly what people did back then. They would take the male children and kill them because they didn’t want them to grow up, become empowered, and seek revenge. It was a common thing. That’s terrible for us to think about that today. Isn’t it? This is very graphic. It makes our stomachs turn. They would grab the feet of a baby and hit their heads against rocks. Of course, it’s killed. It’s a mess. The Psalmist is saying, "Let whomever takes over Babylon do this to them." Guess what you’ll read in secular history that Persia did when they defeated Babylon? Exactly that. They did other things too, but they did kill the infants. This is graphic. This is the judgment of God. Where are the children now? In my opinion, they are with God. God takes care of little children. There is an eternal perspective you have to keep in mind.

Let’s turn to Lamentations. It’s a tiny, little book. Listen to this. You ask, "What does this have to do with Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther?" They are returning to rebuild the Temple. I want you to get this down pat. This starts to tell you what the conditions were like when Jesus comes—why the Pharisees are there, where did synagogues come from, etc. All those things happen because of what we’re talking about now. There is nothing in the Land right now. They are going to return to build the Temple that Jesus will visit. This is fantastic and very interesting. We’re seeing the groundwork laid for the environment Jesus eventually lives in.

Lamentations 1:1

How deserted lies the city, once so full of people! How like a widow is she, who once was great among the nations! She who was queen among the provinces has now become a slave.

He’s talking about Jerusalem.

Lamentations 1:2

Bitterly she weeps at night, tears are upon her cheeks. Among all her lovers there is none to comfort her. All her friends have betrayed her; they have become her enemies.

This is poetry. It’s a way of describing how bad things were.

Lamentations 1:3

After affliction and harsh labor, Judah has gone into exile. She dwells among the nations; she finds no resting place. All who pursue her have overtaken her in the midst of her distress.

Judah, the Southern Kingdom has gone into captivity.

Lamentations 1:4

The roads to Zion mourn, for no one comes to her appointed feasts. All her gateways are desolate, her priests groan, her maidens grieve, and she is in bitter anguish.

Do you see that? If you were living at this time as a Jew, how would you feel? Everything’s gone. It’s not just captivity—your whole religious identity has been removed.

Lamentations 1:5

Her foes have become her masters; her enemies are at ease. The LORD has brought her grief because of her many sins. Her children have gone into exile, captive before the foe.

The sentence, "The Lord has brought her grief because of her many sins," is repeated throughout Lamentations and Jeremiah. Who caused this to happen? They did it to themselves but God pronounced the judgment. They did the sinning. God executed His judgment. He said, "That’s it. No more."

Lamentations 1:6-8

All the splendor has departed from the Daughter of Zion. Her princes are like deer that find no pasture; in weakness they have fled before the pursuer. In the days of her affliction and wandering Jerusalem remembers all the treasures that were hers in days of old. When her people fell into enemy hands, there was no one to help her. Her enemies looked at her and laughed at her destruction. Jerusalem has sinned greatly and so has become unclean. All who honored her despise her, for they have seen her nakedness; she herself groans and turns away.

I could keep reading but do you get the idea of Lamentations? It is a lament over the fall of Jerusalem.

Let’s get back to Ezra. I know we’ve made a large detour, but it gives you some feeling for the zeal of the people to return to Israel.

What do they find when they get back to Israel? Has it been a vacant land? No. Strangers have settled there. They are returning to reclaim possession of the Land. But other people are there and they must rebuild the Temple.

Cyrus does a good thing by returning articles belonging to the Temple of the Lord from Babylon.

Ezra 2:62

These searched for their family records, but they could not find them and so were excluded from the priesthood as unclean.

If you look at chapter 2, it contains a list of all the exiles who returned. When Jesus was born, the whole idea of the Old Testament was that from the seed of Abraham and the seed of David, there would come a Messiah, a Savior. Jesus fits that description. We read that there are two genealogies in the New Testament: Matthew and Luke, Mary’s and Joseph’s. How did they know the genealogies? Only because when they returned from captivity, they said, "All right. Let’s record everybody’s genealogies. Let’s prove it. Let’s maintain the integrity of the genealogies." Do you understand how important that genealogy is 500 years later? If it wasn’t saved, they could not have shown the line to Christ.

Here in verse 62, we see that these people searched for their records. They could not find them so they were excluded from the priesthood as unclean. In other words, some people came along and said, "We’re Levites." But the Israelites say, "We can’t find your family records. We have to exclude you."

This begins something that is very interesting about the time between the Old and New Testaments. Put yourself in their shoes. You’ve just returned from Babylon. You have such a zeal for the Lord. You have learned your lesson. Trust me. You have seen it all. You have been wiped out, taken into captivity, etc. All these things have happened to you. You’re finally returning to Israel and you’re ready to rebuild the Temple. You’re saying, "There is only one God and I will serve Him. There are no other gods. There are no idols. There is only God, Jehovah." You have a zeal for Him. If you’ll keep that in mind as we read through this, you’ll understand why the Pharisees, Sadducees, and others had such a hard time accepting Jesus in the New Testament. They were saying, "Anybody who’s going to come to us and attack what we’re studying, what we believe, and what we’ve written down, is wrong. We must protect our Jewish heritage." Do you understand that? It’s a key point to understanding what is to come.

You have an incredible zeal for the Lord upon returning from captivity. You told each other, "We will never forget God. We will never serve another idol. We will never do this or that again." When you say that long enough, guess what some are going to do? "Wait a minute. That’s good. Let me write those down. Even though they are not in the Bible, let me write down these laws. When the Bible says, "Remember the Sabbath," let’s make sure we understand what this means. It means no work. OK. That means don’t carry anything more than five pounds for more than thirty feet. That’s what ‘work’ will mean." Do you see what I mean? That’s what you did. You see, at first, it sounds like a really good thing. They appear to be really turned on to the Lord, to know who God is, and want to protect their relationship with Him. But it’s just like everything else we’ve read—they took it to an extreme. We see that in the New Testament.

Do you remember the priesthood in the Northern Kingdom and in the Southern Kingdom? Who were supposed to be the priests? The Levites. Remember that one of the kings decided they were going to put anyone they wanted to in those positions. This is getting back to the word of God. When the Jews returned from Babylon to Israel, they said, "We are going to observe what God has said—no compromises, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. We’re going to do exactly what He said." That’s what we’re reading here. "If you can’t prove your lineage, then you are not a Levite." That’s the significance of verse 62.

Ezra 3:1-3

When the seventh month came and the Israelites had settled in their towns, the people assembled as one man in Jerusalem. Then Jeshua son of Jozadak and his fellow priests and Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and his associates began to build the altar of the God of Israel to sacrifice burnt offerings on it, in accordance with what is written in the Law of Moses the man of God. Despite their fear of the peoples around them, they built the altar on its foundation and sacrificed burnt offerings on it to the LORD, both the morning and evening sacrifices.

So you see how important it is. What did they want to do when they returned? "Let’s go back and observe what we’ve been told. Let’s not worship idols or erect Asherah poles or high places again. Let’s go back to what God gave Moses in the Law. That’s what we’ll do: the sacrifices, the Passover, etc."

Ezra 3:10a

When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the LORD, the priests in their vestments and with trumpets, and the Levites (the sons of Asaph)

Mark that name, "Asaph." When you get over to Psalms, guess what you’re going to read. A Psalm of Asaph.

Ezra 3:10b-11a

with cymbals, took their places to praise the LORD, as prescribed by David king of Israel. With praise and thanksgiving they sang to the LORD:

How about this? They came out of Babylon and now they feel like singing.

Ezra 3:11b

"He is good; his love to Israel endures forever." And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid.

Aren’t there times when you almost want to give a great shout of praise to the Lord!? There’s no problem with shouting praises to the Lord in any situation. When the Holy Spirit moves you and you see something for the first time, praise the Lord. That’s the Holy Spirit within you. That’s not me or the pastor or a song. That’s just God convicting you through whatever you’re seeing or hearing (in goodness).

Ezra 3:12-13

But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy. No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away.

In other words, the Temple they are rebuilding does not look like and is not as grand as Solomon’s Temple. The comparison is why they’re weeping.

Ezra 4:1a

When the enemies of Judah and Benjamin

Note that at this point, we’re talking about Levi, Judah, and Benjamin. Obviously some of the people from the tribes in the Northern Kingdom escaped to Judah when Assyria wiped out Israel. Some people say, "Ten tribes were wiped out. We only have two." Well, Ezra refers to Levi, Judah, and Benjamin and we’ll see two more.

Ezra 4:1b-2

heard that the exiles were building a temple for the LORD, the God of Israel, they came to Zerubbabel and to the heads of the families and said, "Let us help you build because, like you, we seek your God and have been sacrificing to him since the time of Esarhaddon king of Assyria, who brought us here."

This sounds like a good gesture. The people who lived there while the Jews were in captivity saw them returning and starting to lay the foundation. They ran up and said, "Hey, can we help you? We’ve been serving your God too." What do you think the people from Babylon will say to them? "No way!" Why? Because they weren’t pure. They said, "We’re going to do this right. We’ve learned our lesson." Don’t look at it like, "Well, all they were trying to do is help." No. There were some other motives. If you were one of these Jews, you were very jealous about God now. It’s God and God alone. I can’t stress that enough. The more you think about that, the more you’ll understand the New Testament. Trust me. The more you think about the mindset that Jews had coming from Babylon back to Israel, the more you’ll understand the New Testament.

Ezra 4:3

But Zerubbabel, Jeshua and the rest of the heads of the families of Israel answered, "You have no part with us in building a temple to our God. We alone will build it for the LORD, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus, the king of Persia, commanded us."

You will not help us. Why? Because you want to remain pure. You don’t want to be contaminated again. So you reject them.

Ezra 4:4-5

Then the peoples around them set out to discourage the people of Judah and make them afraid to go on building. They hired counselors to work against them and frustrate their plans during the entire reign of Cyrus king of Persia and down to the reign of Darius king of Persia.

You can read this. This is a wonderfully detailed story of the rebuilding of the Temple. They faced opposition. Someone wrote a letter to the king and said, "Hey, there’s a rebellion in Jerusalem. What are you going to do about it?" The king wrote back and said, "Stop everything." The king eventually allows the construction to continue. There are some back and forth politics going on. You’ll read all this.

Ezra 5:1-2

Now Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the prophet, a descendant of Iddo, prophesied to the Jews in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel, who was over them. Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and Jeshua son of Jozadak set to work to rebuild the house of God in Jerusalem. And the prophets of God were with them, helping them.

There are the prophets: Haggai and Zechariah. I was going to read from their books this morning but we don’t have time. Go read them. Quickly:

• Haggai—very easy reading, very practical, easy to understand.
• Zechariah—Twilight Zone. He was out there. It is, however, one of the key books to understanding Daniel and Revelation. It is a hard book to read and understand because of all the symbolism and references to future events.

That’s Ezra. The Temple is finished. There’s a dedication of the Temple. In chapter 7, Ezra comes to Jerusalem. Chapter 9 has some words about inter-marriage. That’s another point I’m trying to make. If you read chapter 9, you’ll see that Ezra preached against it. He said, "Don’t do this. Don’t do this." Why? That’s what started the decline—Solomon’s inter-marrying.

If you can understand their mindset (the weeping and disappointment) and that they were given another chance. They said, "We’re going to get it right this time." But they got it right to a fault. They went too far. We’ll read that in the New Testament.

Nehemiah leads the people to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. It’s similar to Ezra. These rebuilt walls are the walls that exist at the time of Christ. You can read that. There is some more opposition.

In Nehemiah, chapter 8, Ezra renews the covenant.

Nehemiah 8:2-3

So on the first day of the seventh month Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, which was made up of men and women and all who were able to understand. He read it aloud from daybreak till noon as he faced the square before the Water Gate in the presence of the men, women and others who could understand. And all the people listened attentively to the Book of the Law.

The Book of the Law was Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

Do you know what they were doing? Do you know what their mindset was at this time? They said, "We can’t get enough of God’s Word. Stand there all day and talk to us." Wouldn’t that be great? Wouldn’t you like to keep studying all day? We’re fanatics. We’re weird. That’s what was happening. These people were so hungry for God—the purity of God, the essence of God, the grace of God, the love of God, the forgiveness of God, etc. They said, "Just give it to us. Our lives will stop until we learn more about God." If you’ve never had a chance to stop your daily routine to know more about God, I hope it happens this week—where you actually stop what you think you have just got to do in this world and say, "Wait a minute. Before I take another step, I’m going to read the Word of God. I’m going to spend time in His Word." I always thought this or that was more important. It is not. Reading God’s Word is more important.