Ezra 4:3-6

3But Zerubbabel, Jeshua and the other leaders of Israel's people said, ‘No. You cannot help us to build the temple for our God. We must build it by ourselves for the Lord, Israel's God. That is what Cyrus, king of Persia, has commanded us to do.’

4Then the people who lived near them tried to make Judah's people afraid. They tried to stop them building.

5They paid bribes to government officers to work against the Israelite builders. Then they could not do the work. They continued to do this all the time that King Cyrus ruled Persia, until Darius became king.

6When Xerxes became king of Persia, Judah's enemies wrote a letter to him. They said that the people who lived in Jerusalem and the rest of Judah were doing a bad thing.