Ezra 1:5-6

It should seem that many of the people remained in Babylon reconciled to their captivity, and had mingled with the Chaldees. An awful representation of characters, in all ages, whose condemnation is that light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. John 3:19. And those precious souls whose spirits God had raised up to return to Jerusalem, what a sweet representation are they of all that through the blessed recoveries of grace emerge out of the captivity of sin and Satan, and seek Jesus, of whom Jerusalem, the holy city, was a type. Reader! see in this the blessed lesson the Holy Ghost teacheth. Jerusalem was in ruins at this time; the temple destroyed, the walls thrown down. But amidst all this discouragement the people willingly, and with joy, returned. And doth not the poor sinner, when once his eyes are opened, his prison-doors thrown open, and the Lord's grace leading him by the hand, ask the way to Zion with his face thitherward, to join himself to the Lord in a covenant that cannot be forgotten? Jeremiah 50:5.