22. Also no foreign tax or any other fine should be placed on any of the priests, Levites, temple singers, gatekeepers, temple servants, or people working on this temple. No one has authority to impose anything on them.
23. You, Ezra, according to God’s wisdom, should appoint judges and justices to have jurisdiction over all those who know the Law from your God, throughout all Syria and Phoenicia. You should teach it to those who don’t know it.
24. All who disobey the Law from your God or the royal law will be strictly punished, whether by death or some other punishment, either fine or arrest.
25. Bless the Lord alone, who put this into the king’s heart, to glorify his house in Jerusalem,
26. and who honored me before the king, the counselors, all of his political advisors, and officials.
27. I was encouraged by my God’s help, and I gathered people from Israel to go up with me.
28. These are the leaders, according to their families and their divisions, who went up with me from Babylon, in King Artaxerxes’ rule:
41. I assembled them at the Theras River, where I inspected them. We camped at that place for three days.
42. When I found no families from the priests or the Levites there,