When the people saw that Moses had not come down from the mountain but was staying there a long time, they gathered around Aaron and said to him, "We do not know what has happened to this man Moses, who led us out of Egypt; so make us a god to lead us."

But once Jehoiada was dead, the leaders of Judah persuaded King Joash to listen to them instead.

And so the people stopped worshiping in the Temple of the LORD, the God of their ancestors, and began to worship idols and the images of the goddess Asherah. Their guilt for these sins brought the LORD's anger on Judah and Jerusalem.

One night, when everyone was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away.

One day four months later, when Emperor Artaxerxes was dining, I took the wine to him. He had never seen me look sad before,

During all the twelve years that I was governor of the land of Judah, from the twentieth year that Artaxerxes was emperor until his thirty-second year, neither my relatives nor I ate the food I was entitled to have as governor.

and then I said to the emperor, "If Your Majesty is pleased with me and is willing to grant my request, let me go to the land of Judah, to the city where my ancestors are buried, so that I can rebuild the city."

The emperor, with the empress sitting at his side, approved my request. He asked me how long I would be gone and when I would return, and I told him.