Avery Johnson, coach for the New Jersey Nets, writes in his book Aspire Higher that you have to distance yourself from people who are losers—who don't want to see you succeed and will try to sabotage you.
That's exactly what happened to the Israelite's as they were trying to rebuild their temple and wall in chapter 4 of Ezra. The people around them tried to sabotage their mission. The enemies of Judah and Benjamin came and said, "Let us build with you, for we seek your God as you do; and we have sacrificed to Him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria, who brought us here."
But the Israelite leaders said 'no.' The surrounding nations couldn't help. In response to that no, the enemies started trying to discourage them. 'Hey, if we can't be part of this, then you better not be able to finish!'
It really stinks because all through the rest of Cyrus' reign and the reign of Darius (which I really don't know how long that whole time was—but it sounds like a long time : \ ) this sort of discouragement was going on. Finally when king Artaxerxes came into power the enemies sent him a letter and persuaded him to have the progress halted on reason's that the people would stop paying taxes to the king if the work was finished and their city was reestablished.
Now, I'm not sure how the whole time line is laid out, but apparently the work was halted until the second year of Darius' reign . . . but I'm not sure if that's the same Darius that was mentioned earlier . . . I'd assume that it is . . . but anyway . . . the writing on that point was a bit out of sync.
So, over all . . . this book is getting better! : )
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