Then rose up the chief of the fathers, the heads of the divisions known as father-houses, of Judah and Benjamin, for these two tribes were chiefly concerned in this exile and the return, and the priests and the Levites, with all them whose spirit God had raised, those in whose hearts the Lord had wrought the willingness to return to the land of their fathers and build up the country anew from the depths of desolation, to go up to build the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem. A good many Jews of Babylon could not make up their minds to return to Judah, since they were unwilling to relinquish the property they had gained in the land of their captivity.

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