\v 1 King Nebuchadnezzar's soldiers captured many Israelite people and took them to Babylonia. Many years later, some Israelite people returned to Judah. Some returned to Jerusalem,
and some returned to other places in Judah. They went to the towns where their ancestors had lived. This is a list of the groups who returned.
\v 2 The leaders of those groups were Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Seraiah, Reelaiah, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispar, Bigvai, Rehum, and Baanah.
\v 59 There was another group who returned to Judah from Tel Melah, Tel Charsha, Cerub, Addan, and Immer in Babylonia. But they could not prove that they were true Israelites.
\v 60 This group included 652 people who were descendants of Delaiah, Tobiah, and Nekoda.
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\v 61 The descendants of the priests in this group included people belonging to Habaiah's clan, Hakkoz's clan, and Barzillai's clan. Barzillai had married a woman who was a descendant of Barzillai from the region of Gilead, and he had taken for himself the name of his father-in-law's clan.
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\v 62 The people in that group searched in the documents that had the names of the ancestors of all the clans, but these men's names were not found. So they were not permitted do the
work that priests did.
\v 63 The governor told them that they would need to ask a priest to consult Yahweh by casting the sacred lots, to determine whether those men were truly Israelites. If the stones showed that those men were Israelites, they would be permitted to eat the shares of the sacrifices that were given to the priests.
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\v 64 Altogether 42,360 Israelite people returned to Judah.
\v 65 There were also 7,337 servants and two hundred musicians, both men and women, who returned.
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\v 66 The Israelites brought with them from Babylonia 736 horses, 245 mules,
\v 67 435 camels, and 6,720 donkeys.
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\v 68 When they arrived at the temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem, some of the clan leaders gave money for the supplies needed to rebuild the temple in the same place where the old temple had been.
\v 69 They all gave as much money as they were able to give. Altogether they gave about five hundred kilograms of gold, about 2.9 metric tons of silver, and 100 robes for the priests.
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\v 70 Then the priests, the other descendants of Levi, the musicians, the temple guards, and some of the other people started to live in the towns and villages near Jerusalem. The rest of the
people went to the other places in Israel there where their ancestors had lived.