The angel told me to give Zerubbabel this message from the LORD: "You will succeed, not by military might or by your own strength, but by my spirit.

Obstacles as great as mountains will disappear before you. You will rebuild the Temple, and as you put the last stone in place, the people will shout, 'Beautiful, beautiful!' "

A voice cries out, "Prepare in the wilderness a road for the LORD! Clear the way in the desert for our God!

Fill every valley; level every mountain. The hills will become a plain, and the rough country will be made smooth.

As it is written in the book of the prophet Isaiah: "Someone is shouting in the desert: 'Get the road ready for the Lord; make a straight path for him to travel!

The whole human race will see God's salvation!' "

From the territory of Benjamin they were given four cities: Gibeon, Geba,

Then King Asa sent out an order throughout all of Judah requiring everyone, without exception, to help carry away from Ramah the stones and timber that Baasha had been using to fortify it. With this material Asa fortified Mizpah and Geba, a city in the territory of Benjamin.

They have crossed the pass and are spending the night at Geba! The people in the town of Ramah are terrified, and the people in King Saul's hometown of Gibeah have run away.

Lebaoth, Shilhim, Ain, and Rimmon: twenty-nine cities in all, along with the towns around them.

The others turned and ran toward the open country to Rimmon Rock. Five thousand of them were killed on the roads. The Israelites continued to pursue the rest to Gidom, killing two thousand.

But six hundred men were able to escape to the open country to Rimmon Rock, and they stayed there four months.

Then the whole assembly sent word to the Benjaminites who were at Rimmon Rock and offered to end the war.

They also lived in five other places: Etam, Ain, Rimmon, Tochen, and Ashan,

The remaining families of the clan of Merari were assigned the following towns with the surrounding pasture lands: In the territory of Zebulun: Rimmono and Tabor.

The first one said to the other, "Run and tell that young man with the measuring line that there are going to be so many people and so much livestock in Jerusalem that it will be too big to have walls.

"At that time I will make the clans of Judah like a fire in a forest or in a field of ripe grain---they will destroy all the surrounding nations. The people of Jerusalem will remain safe in the city.

The LORD says, "I will restore my people to their land and have mercy on every family; Jerusalem will be rebuilt, and its palace restored.

Jehoash captured Amaziah and took him to Jerusalem. There he tore down the city wall from Ephraim Gate to the Corner Gate, a distance of two hundred yards.

This is how the city wall was rebuilt. The High Priest Eliashib and his fellow priests rebuilt the Sheep Gate, dedicated it, and put the gates in place. They dedicated the wall as far as the Tower of the Hundred and the Tower of Hananel.

and from there we went past Ephraim Gate, Jeshanah Gate, the Fish Gate, the Tower of Hananel, and the Tower of the Hundred, to the Sheep Gate. We ended our march near the gate to the Temple.

"The time is coming," says the LORD, "when all of Jerusalem will be rebuilt as my city, from Hananel Tower west to the Corner Gate.

The entire valley, where the dead are buried and garbage is dumped, and all the fields above Kidron Brook as far as the Horse Gate to the east, will be sacred to me. The city will never again be torn down or destroyed."

But when I reached the Benjamin Gate, the officer in charge of the soldiers on duty there, a man by the name of Irijah, the son of Shelemiah and grandson of Hananiah, stopped me and said, "You are deserting to the Babylonians!"

However, Ebedmelech the Ethiopian, a eunuch who worked in the royal palace, heard that they had put me in the well. At that time the king was holding court at the Benjamin Gate.