God's special people, the
Jews, did not obey God. So he punished them. He allowed the king of Babylon and his army to
defeat them. The king of Babylon ordered most
Jews to live in Babylon.
Babylon was a long way from their country,
called Judah.
Many years later, the army
from Persia defeated the
army from Babylon.
The king of Persia
allowed the Jews to return to their own land. Only some of the Jews returned to
Judah.
Many years later a man
called Hanani left Judah
to visited his brother, Nehemiah. Nehemiah was an important servant of the king
of Persia.
Nehemiah asked Hanani for news about Jerusalem,
which was the chief city in Judah.
Hanani told Nehemiah that the walls of Jerusalem
were only heaps of stones. Fire had burned the gates of the city. This news
made Nehemiah very sad. So Nehemiah asked the king to send him to Jerusalem to build the
walls of the city again.
The book of Nehemiah in the
Bible tells the story of how Nehemiah and the people built the walls of Jerusalem again. The
people who lived near Jerusalem
did not want the Jews to build the city again. They opposed the Jews and tried
to stop the work. But God helped them and they finished the work in 52 days.
God wanted the Jews to
become his special people again. So Nehemiah, with the help of Ezra, helped the
people to obey God. But often the people did not obey God's word. They had
forgotten that God had punished the people many years earlier. He did that
because they did not obey him. God had allowed a foreign king to defeat the
Jews. That was why the city of Jerusalem
needed these repairs.
