8:21. And I proclaimed there a fast by the river Ahava, that we might afflict ourselves before the Lord our God, and might ask of him a right way for us and for our children, and for all our substance. And I proclaimed a fast... It is not enough to part from Babylon, that is, figuratively from sin, but we must also do works of penance; and therefore Esdras here proclaimed an extraordinary fast to those that were come from captivity. This shews that fasting was commanded and practised from the earliest times. 8:22. For I was ashamed to ask the king for aid and for horsemen, to defend us from the enemy in the way: because we had said to the king: The hand of our God is upon all them that seek him in goodness: and his power and strength, and wrath upon all them that forsake him. 8:23. And we fasted, and besought our God for this: and it fell out prosperously unto us. 8:24. And I separated twelve of the chief of the priests, Sarabias, and Hasabias, and with them ten of their brethren, 8:25. And I weighed unto them the silver and gold, and the vessels consecrated for the house of our God, which the king and his counsellors, and his princes, and all Israel, that were found had offered. 8:26. And I weighed to their hands six hundred and fifty talents of silver, and a hundred vessels of silver, and a hundred talents of gold, 8:27. And twenty cups of gold, of a thousand solids, and two vessels of the best shining brass, beautiful as gold. 8:28. And I said to them: You are the holy ones of the Lord, and the vessels are holy, and the silver and gold, that is freely offered to the Lord the God of our fathers. 8:29. Watch ye and keep them, till you deliver them by weight before the chief of the priests, and of the Levites, and the heads of the families of Israel in Jerusalem, into the treasure of the house of the Lord. 8:30. And the priests and the Levites received the weight of the silver and gold, and the vessels, to carry them to Jerusalem to the house of our God. 8:31. Then we set forward from the river Ahava on the twelfth day of the first month to go to Jerusalem: and the hand of our God was upon us, and delivered us from the hand of the enemy, and of such as lay in wait by the way. 8:32. And we came to Jerusalem, and we stayed there three days. 8:33. And on the fourth day the silver and the gold, and the vessels were weighed in the house of our God by the hand of Meremoth the son of Urias the priest, and with him was Eleazar the son of Phinees, and with them Jozabad the son of Josue, and Noadaia the son of Benoi, Levites. 8:34. According to the number and weight of everything: and all the weight was written at that time. 8:35. Moreover the children of them that had been carried away that were come out of the captivity, offered holocausts to the God of Israel, twelve calves for all the people of Israel, ninety-six rams, seventy- seven lambs, and twelve he goats for sin: all for a holocaust to the Lord.