Ezra 5:8-12

May it be known to the king that we have gone to the province of Judah, to the house of the great God which is being built with large stones, and beams are being laid in the walls; and this work is being performed with great care and is succeeding in their hands.

Then we asked those elders and said to them as follows: ‘Who issued you a decree to rebuild this temple and to finish this structure?’

We also asked them their names so as to inform you, in order that we might write down the names of the men who were in charge.

So they answered us as follows, saying, ‘We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and are rebuilding the temple that was built many years ago, which a great king of Israel built and finished.

But because our fathers provoked the God of heaven to wrath, He handed them over to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this temple and deported the people to Babylon.