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September 19th
The bible reading today is in Ezra 4-6 and Ps 137.
In Ezra chapter 4, the Samaritans, .made up of Assyrians who married Israelis for several generations since the Assyrian defeat and capture of the northern kingdom, made an offer to help build the Temple. But the Judeans refused their offer.
The Samaritans wrote a letter to the king of Persia full of accusations against the Judeans. The king of Persia responded commanding the Jews to cease building the Temple.
The text...“The Samaritans approached Zerubbabel and the heads of fathers’ houses and said to them, “Let us build with you, for we worship your God as you do, and we have been sacrificing to him ever since the days of Ezzerhaddon king of Assyria who brought us here.”
But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of fathers’ houses in Israel said to them, “ “You have nothing to do with us...in building a house to our God; but we “alone” will build to the Lord, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us.”
