ilding the city. He also wrote to them, that all
the captives who should go to Judea should be free; and he prohibited
his deputies and governors to lay any king's taxes upon the Jews; he
also permitted that they should have all that land which they could
possess themselves of without tributes. He also enjoined the Idumeans
and Samaritans, and the inhabitants of Celesyria, to restore those
villages which they had taken from the Jews; and that, besides all this,
fifty talents should be given them for the building of the temple.
He also permitted them to offer their appointed sacrifices, and that
whatsoever the high priest and the priests wanted, and those sacred
garments wherein they used to worship God, should be made at his own
charges; and that the musical instruments which the Levites used in
singing hymns to God should be given them. Moreover, he charged them,
that portions of land should be given to those that guarded the city
and the temple, as also a determinate sum of money every year for their
maintenance; and withal he sent the vessels. And all that Cyrus intended
to do before him relating to the restoration of Jerusalem, Darius also
ordained should be done accordingly.

9. Now when Zorobabel had obtained these grants from the king, he went
out of the palace, and looking up to heaven, he began to return thanks
to God for the wisdom he had given him, and the victory he had gained
thereby, even in the presence of Darius himself; for, said he, "I had
not been thought worthy of these advantages, O Lord, unless thou hadst
been favorable to me." When therefore he had returned these thanks to
God for the present circumstances he was in, and had prayed to him to
afford him the like favor for the time to come, he came to Babylon, and
brought the good news to his countrymen of what grants he had procured
for them from the king; who, when they heard the same, gave thanks also
to God that he restored the land of their forefathers to them again. So
they betook themselves to drinking and eating, and for seven days
they continued feasting, and kept a festival, for the rebuilding and
restoration of their country: after this they chose themselves rulers,
who should go up to Jerusalem, out of the tribes of their forefathers,
with their wives, and children, and cattle, who traveled to Jerusalem
with joy and pleasure, under the conduct of those whom Darius sent along
with them, and making a noise with songs, and pipes, and cymbals