Nehemiah 7:5

It seems that Nehemiah prayed about this problem. And God showed him what to do. Nehemiah recorded all the people in a list of their families. Then he found the list of the first people who returned from *exile. Nehemiah could remind the people about their brave *ancestors who returned from *exile. These *ancestors had left their homes in Persia. Then they had walked for many weeks to come back to *Judah. When they arrived in *Judah, they had to build new houses and to farm the land again. The people of Nehemiah’s time had houses and farms because of the work of their *ancestors. Now these people could help to make Jerusalem a great city again.

v6 These are the people in *Judah who returned from *exile. (Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had taken their families into *exile.) The people returned to Jerusalem and *Judah. Each person went back to the town where his family used to live. v7 The leaders were Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Azariah, Raamiah, Nahamani, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispereth, Bigvai, Nehum and Baanah.