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Ezra, the King’s Trusted Friend
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Ezra “separated twelve of the leaders of the priests ... and weighed
out to them the silver, the gold, and the articles, the offering for the
house of our God.”
Verses 24, 25
. He solemnly charged these men
to act as vigilant protectors over the treasure. “Guard them and keep
them until you weigh them before the chief priests and the Levites
and the heads of families in Israel at Jerusalem.”
Verse 29
, NRSV.
Ezra chose only those who had proven trustworthy. He recog-
nized that order and organization were necessary in the work of
God.
“We departed,” Ezra writes, “on the twelfth day of the first month,
to go to Jerusalem. And the hand of our God was upon us, and He
delivered us from the hand of the enemy and from ambush along the
road.”
Verse 31
. The journey took about four months. God restrained
their enemies from harming them, and on the first day of the fifth
month, in the seventh year of Artaxerxes, they reached Jerusalem.
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