Dead Sea Scroll 4Q117 - 4Q Ezra?

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Translation by Lisbeth S. Fried, University of Michigan

Fragment 1 – Ezra 4:2-6 (1^st Esdras 5:66-70)

1 [²Like you, we seek your] go[d and to him we have been sacrificing since the days of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, who brought us up]
2 [here. ³And ] Z [rubbabel and Joshua and the rest of the heads of the patriarchal clans of Israel said] to them [“It is not yours, but ours, to build]
3 [a house for our god.] For w[e alone will build to YHWH the god of Israel just as King Cyrus the king of (4) Persia (3)commanded us.]
4 [But the landed] aristocracy dis[couraged the people of Judah making them afraid to build. ⁵ So they hired]
5 [for themselves officials to] frustrate their plans [all the days of Cyrus king of Persia until the reign of Darius king of Persia]
6 [⁶ And during the reign of Xerxes, at the begin]ing of his reig[n ]

Fragment 2 – Ezra 4:9-11 (No 1^st Esdras parallel)

1 [the scribe and the rest of the]ir [collea]gues – the ju]ges [the envoys, the Persian officials, the people of Erech, the Babylonians,]
2 [and the people of Susa, that is, the E]lamites and the ¹⁰rest of the natio[ns whom the great and famous Osnappar exiled and caused to settle]
3 [in the city of Samaria] and the rest of Beyond the River. And now [¹¹this is a copy of the letter which they sent to him:]
4 [To Artaxerxes the K]i[ng] Your Servants, men of Beyond [the River, and now ¹²…..]

Fragment 3 – Ezra 5:17-6:5 (1^st Esdras 6:20-25)

1 ^5:17 …….
2 [Cyrus the king issued a decree to build] this [h]ouse of God in Jeru[salem. Now let the king send us his pleasure in the matter.]
3 [^6:1 Then, Darius the king issued a de]ree and he searched in the arc[hives in Babylon where the records were deposited 2but] (4) a document (3)[was found]
4 [in Ecbatana, the capital of Media] the province and thus was writ[ten within it a memorandum: ^6:3In the first year of Cyrus]
5 [the king, King Cyrus decr]eed: (Concerning) the house of the god in Jerusalem, let [the] house [be built, a site where sacrifices may be sacrificed]
6 [and its foundations laid. Its heigh]t, sixty cub[i]ts, its width, sixty cubits, ^6:4 [three] layers of [rolled stone]
7 [and one layer of wood. Expense]s will be paid from the royal palace. ^6:5 And moreover,] gold [and silver] vessels of the hou[se of the god]
8 [which Nebuchadnezzar brought out] from the temple which is in Jerusalem and which were carried to Baby[lon, they shall be restored and brought]
9 [to the temple which is in Jerusalem to its place] and you shall deposit (them) in the house of the god. (vacat). And now

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