24. Also we are informing you that with regard to all the priests, Levites, singers, doorkeepers, temple servants, or other servants of this house of God, it is not permitted to impose toll, tribute, or custom on them.
25. “You, Ezra, according to the wisdom of your God who empowers you, appoint magistrates and judges to judge all the people of the province Beyond the River, all those who know the laws of your God and those who do not, whom you must teach.
26. Whoever will not observe the law of your God or the law of the king, let judgment be executed speedily on him, whether that be death, banishment, confiscation of goods, or imprisonment.”
27. Blessed be the Lord God of our fathers, who has put such a thing as this in the king’s heart, to beautify the house of the Lord in Jerusalem,
28. and has extended mercy to me before the king, his counselors, and all the king’s mighty princes. Thus I had been strengthened, because the hand of the Lord my God was upon me. As a result, I gathered together some of the chief men of Israel to go up with me.