8 But they will become servants of his,+ that they may know the difference between my service+ and the service of the kingdoms of the lands.”+

9 For we are servants;+ and in our servitude our God has not left us,+ but he extends toward us loving-kindness before the kings of Persia,+ to give us a reviving so as to raise up the house of our God+ and to restore its desolated places+ and to give us a stone wall+ in Judah and in Jerusalem.

19 And it must occur that YOU will say, ‘Due to what fact has Jehovah our God done to us all these things?’+ And you must say to them, ‘Just as YOU have left me and have gone serving a foreign god* in YOUR land, so YOU will serve strangers in a land that is not YOURS.’”+