Ezra 7:1-10
Amen. Turn to chapter seven of
the book of Ezra. Tonight we’ll be looking at verses
one through 10, Ezra chapter seven, one through 10. Remember
in the story of Ezra and Nehemiah, You’re looking at approximately
70 years after the final deportation of Judah and Jerusalem. So I think in 605, there was
a deportation. And if you fact check me, I’ll
admit right now, I don’t have my dates a hundred percent. Pretty
sure 605, the first deportation, there was another one somewhere
in there. And then 586 was the big one
where the Babylonians were taking away people of Judah and Jerusalem,
carrying them back to Babylon. This is roughly a hundred years
after the Northern 10 tribes were exiled by Assyria. And then
the land was repatriated in the north with what we call the Samaritans. We hear of them often in Jesus’
parables. But 586 would have been the big
deportation where the temple was destroyed, the city was laid
waste, and Jeremiah wrote his lamentations and wrote very dramatically
of, lay it bare, they said, lay it bare. And they did. And so
now 70 years later, um, the temple has been rebuilt. They’ve reestablished
themselves after a hard 20 or so years in the promised land.
And that’s where we ended last week. Now we fast forward into
the second era of, um, Ezra Nehemiah. This is, um, about 58 years after
last week. So last week they were, oh, 21
years into this thing, 22 years into this, going back to Jerusalem,
rebuilding the temple, moving back in the city. So fast forward
about 58 years and you’ve got Ezra. And then you’re gonna fast
forward at another point when we get to Nehemiah and he’s gonna
come rebuild the wall. So you got, remember the hundred
years of opposition during all this, but you have a little over
a hundred years of history of God’s people. And meanwhile,
remember there’s Daniel. over in Babylon. Meanwhile, remember
there’s Esther over in Persia. You’ve got geopolitical changes
and other Bible story events taking place. So let’s give our
attention to God’s word to Ezra chapter seven. Now after this,
that’s a good way to fast forward 58 years. Now after this, in
the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, Ezra, the son of Sariah,
the son of Azariah, the son of Hilkiah, the son of Shalom, son
of Zadok, son of Ahitab, son of Amariah, son of Azariah, son
of Moriah, son of Zeraliah, son of Uzzi, son of Buki, son of
Abishua, son of Phineas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron, the
chief priest, this Ezra, went up from Babylonia. He was a scribe
skilled in the law of Moses that the Lord, the God of Israel had
given. And the King granted him all that he asked for the hand
of the Lord. His God was on him. And there
went up also to Jerusalem in the seventh year of Artaxerxes,
the King, some of the people of Israel and some of the priests,
some of the Levites, the singers, the gatekeepers, the temple servants,
and It says of Ezra, he came to Jerusalem in the fifth month,
which was in the seventh year of the king. For on the first
day of the first month, he began to go up from Babylonia. And on the first day of the fifth
month, he came to Jerusalem. for the good hand of his God
was on him. For Ezra had set his heart to
study the law of the Lord and to do it and to teach his statutes
and his rules in Israel. Amen, the word. of the living
God for us. May it land on good soil and
produce good fruit. Back in the year 2009, which
seems an age ago, we observed the 500th anniversary of the
birth of John Calvin. Now, I know some people outside
the Reformed faith think that all we do is worship John Calvin.
And sometimes it’s good for us to remember heroes of the faith
like him. He’s one of many, though, I would say, that we we think a lot about. But back
in 2009, there were many wonderful conferences, teachings and books
and all kinds of materials relating to the life of John Calvin that
were so important for our remembering all that he had done and all
his contributions that still last in the church to this day. All kinds of lectures and People
went back to Geneva and Switzerland or France, whichever one you
claim it for, and they studied and remembered this great man
and his great passion to bring about biblical truth. We remember
folks like him, and we could speak of Luther and Huss and
Wycliffe and many others, you know, R.C. Sproul. We could go
back through history and name all kinds of folks, but we thank
the Lord that some men are timely born and some men are uniquely
gifted for the hour in which they live. Most of us are average. Most of us kind of bump through
life, do what’s in front of us. But some of these folks are extraordinarily
gifted and we do give thanks to God for them. And especially
for the contributions of folks like Calvin. who through the
Protestant Reformation put the church back on track. They ended
a thousand years of dark ages. Maybe some of you are thinking
back through the Sunday school lessons over the last year, starting
last September. Y’all been studying down the
fellowship hall on Sunday mornings, the 19th century and why the
church got in the fix it did, the 20th century, why the church
in America got in the fix it did, and thank the Lord for a
new reformation. I think back in 2009, Time Magazine,
back when people were still getting print magazines, would put out
its magazine that explained or gave a list of things influencing
America. And the new Calvinism, Calvinism
hitting a younger generation was in the top 10 of things influencing
American culture. And that has been a good thing,
I do believe. A resurgence for the love of the glory of God,
a desire to go back to the scriptures and to read from the fountain
of life how we ought to live, how we ought to serve, how we
ought to believe. But you think back through the history of God’s
people, not just the Protestant reformation. And you think back
how many times there needed to be reformation. We’ve certainly
needed one in America because our churches have gotten off
track in these last years. And we thank the Lord for it
here. But you see reformations throughout the history of God’s
people. Remember eight year old Josiah. Josiah’s reformation. I don’t think he was eight when
he started it, but he was eight when he became king. But you
read through, you’re reading through the Bible, you’re reading
through Samuel and Kings and Chronicles. And if you’re steady
on and can get through it, you read about all the kings that
did what was wicked in God’s sight, wicked in God’s sight,
wicked in God’s sight. And then you land on a good king. And
the priest found the book of the law and read it to the king
and the king wept and the king tore his clothes and the king
made a decree that we’re going to do what this law says. And
so you would have these pockets of reformation. Well, It’s a
typical pattern or cycle in the life of God’s people. He takes
a people, Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldeans and he forms them
into a nation, puts them in the promised land, gives them a law.
And we see the formation and how wonderful and strong God’s
kingdom can be on earth. His visible people on earth,
such as it was in the days of David and Solomon. But then when
the king’s own hearts go after women and other things, We start
to see the kingdom disintegrate and we land in a place like tonight
where the people of God have been in exile and they’re returning
under great hardship. And it’s because after God went
through that process of formation with them, they went through
a stretch of deformation where they went after the gods of their
neighbors. They demanded a king like other countries had and
they were not satisfied with God as their king. And on and
on we can go. We can look at the 18th and 19th
and 20th century revivals and how that influenced the church
today. Or we can look at the liberalism in the seminaries
and how it led to the enlightenment being preached instead of the
scripture. And on and on we can go. We can see formation and
deformation. But it’s always wonderful to
see reformation. It’s always wonderful to see
the word of God come to bear in the lives of the people. It
teaches them how to think. It teaches them how to live.
It shows them what to believe and how God can be honored in
their daily living and especially in their worship. And so Israel,
we remember all that they have been through. and all the grace
that God to this point has shown them. And now in the second era
of this second Exodus, remember the deportation to Babylon was
like being sent to Egypt. The rescue from Babylon under
Darius and now under Artaxerxes. And then there’ll be another
round under Nehemiah. It’s like a second Exodus back
to the promised land. And if you have a second Exodus,
you also need to have a second Mount Sinai, don’t you? You need
to have the law come and be brought to bear in the life of the people.
And that’s what we have in the coming of Ezra. That’s what we
have in the coming of this man of God, a scribe skilled in the
law of God. That’s what you have arriving
on the scene. God sends the right man, that’s
Ezra, to his people to reestablish his law as the center of their
lives. You know, you think about that
for just a moment. That’s a prescription, isn’t it? It’s timeless. It’s
like take an aspirin and call me in the morning. It just works. An apple a day keeps the doctor
away. It’s just old school, simple
wisdom. God sends the right man to his
people to reestablish his law as the center of their lives.
So we want to think about the coming of Ezra, first of all,
as a new era in the lives of the people of God. If you read
verse one, the beginning, now after this, In the reign of Artaxerxes,
the king of Persia, Ezra, the son of Sariah, the son of Azariah,
the son of Hilkiah, and on and on about his pedigree, he comes.
And then verses six and seven, this Ezra went up from Babylon.
Going to Jerusalem, remember, is always going up. He went up
from Babylon. He was a scribe. He wrote down
the word. He was skilled in the law of
Moses that the law of God of Israel had given and the king
granted him all that he asked for the hand of the Lord his
God was on him. This is a new era. The temple
has been built. It’s been about, um, 58 years since we last left
off. 58 years ago was 516, the temple
completed. It has been 80 years since 538
when Darius or no, before Darius, Cyrus issued
the decree that the people of Judah could leave and go back
to Jerusalem and Judea. They could take all the pans
and the pots and the vessels and the basins and the lovers
and the things needed for temple worship that Babylon had deported
as well. And they can go back and rebuild
and reestablish. And so, uh, Jeshua and Zerubbabel,
we’ve heard about those two quite a bit. The priest and the governor,
they’re dead and gone. Cyrus and Darius are in the past. And now we have a new leader
in Ahasuerus. He lives from 486 to 465. Remember, Esther by now has saved
the people from wicked Mordecai’s edict that all the Jews in the
Persian empire have been saved. Oh, wait, I mentioned a new empire,
didn’t I? We’ve moved from the Babylonian
domination. Now with the geopolitical changes, the Persians are on
the rise. And so this is a new era in all
kinds of ways. A lot of time, several decades
have passed. And remember back in chapter
four, I think it was, of Ezra, we talked about the hundred years
of opposition. We still have yet to see some of the unfolding
of the letters to Ahasuerus and that the people can continue
to work on the city of God. Well, think, if you will, about
Ezra at some point, apparently he makes a request to the king.
I’d like to go back. I’d like to take some people
with me and we’ll look in the weeks to come of all these people
making their way back to Judah and Jerusalem. But it’s wonderful
to see in tonight’s passage that with Ezra came gatekeepers, with
Ezra came Levites, with Ezra came the right people to do the
right jobs. to make the presence of God among
his people. This is another exodus, another
return of God’s people back. Remember, it’s a dangerous journey.
It’s 900 miles or so. They’re relocating here in chapter
eight, about 80 years after the first relocation back in chapters,
early chapters. This is a new generation. They’re
walking into a city they’ve only ever heard of. They’re not like
the old men who were at the foundation of the temple being laid, who
could recollect sometime back. Well, we remember it was bigger.
We remember it was better. We remember it was more glorious.
These people knew nothing by eyesight and by memory, only
what they had been told. And as they come to the city
with Ezra, they see this place for the first time. The priest
and Levites and singers and gatekeepers and, Temple servants. God’s people are on the move.
His kingdom is evident among a kingdom of pagans. This is
a redemptive and historical event as God’s people are coming back
again in another wave to the promised land, to the great city
of Zion, to the great city of David. And much like we saw in
chapter one, they’re leaving Babylon, paganism, and they’re
going up to Jerusalem, probably lots of fasting, lots of praying. And they look forward to being
in the city where the sacraments of God are again underway for
the grace of God’s people. This is a new era. We live as
Christians that we don’t often think of it kind of in between
eras. We live in the already God’s
kingdom has been inaugurated. We live in the not yet. We’re
waiting for more fulfillment to take place. And we’re sort
of, I don’t want to use the word limbo, but we’re, we’re, we’re
sort of in a, in a angst. We can look back and see God’s
past work and we can look forward and see his promises and can’t
wait to see them unfold, especially the coming of Jesus. the gathering
of the saints in heaven. And I imagine this is an important
and exciting thing. We ought to think more, I do
believe, of God’s timing, God’s events, God’s promises, the things
that are yet to come, and how exciting it’s going to be for
Christians. Sometimes we just bump between
Sundays and between Bible readings, but it’s good for us to think
there’s something really big on the horizon, something great
in God’s economy that we wait for. So this is in God’s providence. This is a new era. And what he’s
doing in this new era is the second thing I want us to see
from this passage. He’s fulfilling a great need. In this new era,
there is a great need and that great need is the law of God. If God forms a people and they
become deformed by going after evil devices, but he wants to
do a work among them, he needs to reform them. You know, when
we have a kid that won’t obey, we send them to reform school. We think of the Protestant Reformation
very often as a reformed church. Maybe people ask you, where do
you go to church? And you say, I go to the reformed
church over on Saddle Club. Oh yeah, that’s the one you start
describing. The word is, what’s a reformed church? Well, it’s
a church that’s reformed by the word of God. People don’t know
that word, not even in the broader church. It’s a good opportunity
to evangelize. Yes, for Jesus. But we kind of
think the reformed faith is special because it holds to the scriptures. Well, there’s this great need
for reformation. The second exodus means ascending of a law teacher. In order for Israel to be fully
restored in Jerusalem and Judea, they need to have the law of
God, the law of Moses. They need to know right and wrong,
how to worship. They need to know how to keep the feast. What
is salvation? They need to know the ancient
order of God’s people in order to be a visible and faithful
witness to almighty God on the face of the earth. They need
the Bible as their only rule of faith and practice. They don’t
have copies. And so they need a scribe. They
need a teacher. They need one who is an expert. I don’t know
if y’all catch this and we hadn’t even gotten to Israel yet. And
perhaps I’m jumping a little head. ahead of myself in my own
head. But do you see a parallel between
Paul and Ezra? These are people well-versed
in the scriptures, and it can just spill out of them to reform
the deformed people who once a time ago had been formed and
had gotten away from it. Think about that for a moment
in today’s culture. What we consider acceptable in
the church is often because we like it. What we consider acceptable
in the church is often because it, well, it stirs my heart,
right? That’s what we love to say. And
don’t ever trust your feelings or follow your heart. That’s
really dangerous. We need the Bible as the rule of faith and
practice. And when we have it, we will reform worship. We’ll reform the Christian life
and we’ll trim back and only do the things that are necessary. So this is a great need being
met by almighty God as he sends his man, uh, Ezra to his people. Uh, look at verse 10 B. This is, I’ll just read all of
verse 10. It says, Ezra set his heart to study the law of the
Lord and to do it. Okay. There’s Ezra and to teach
his statutes and rules in Israel. This is the great need. They
need to know the statutes and the rules in Israel. And so he’ll
teach the statutes of the law of Yahweh and his rules in Israel
so that they can hear, so they can see, they can believe, they
can repent, they can turn and they can do. I think of Paul’s
admonition to Timothy, Timothy, my child, you remember the things
you have known from childhood, the things that you learned while
on the knee of your mother, Lois, and your grandmother, your mother,
Eunice, your grandmother, Lois. Basically, they taught him the
Old Testament scriptures. You, my child, remember these
things and remember the sufficiency of the scripture, the benefit
and blessings of the scripture. And he goes on to say, all scripture
is breathed out by God and is useful for teaching and correcting
and for rebuking and for equipping the man of God so that he may
do what is required. And that’s what Ezra is coming
to do. Or you think of Revelation chapter two, blessed are those
who hear the word and do it. Blessed are those who hear the
word and don’t just walk away, but take it to heart, put it
to practice. Now, as Ezra comes, we’re gonna
see in the latter chapters, they’re gonna get back to keeping some
feasts. They’re gonna talk about intermarriage. They’re gonna
talk about injustice. They’re gonna talk about tithing.
They’re gonna talk about cleaning out the church building. and
only having in it the things that are necessary. And isn’t
it our same great need today to have the word of God come
dwell richly among us. And so in this new era, there
is the great need. And in order to help that great
need, there’s a third thing, and that’s a rich provision.
And that provision is in Ezra. Uh, he’s come a long way. Uh, he’s come 900 miles, just
say a thousand miles from Babylon. And he’s come to, to give them,
uh, what we might call a radical reformation. The word of God
will come to bear in their lives. Think about, um, second Timothy
three, 16 and 17. Again, all scripture is breathed
out by God and as useful as I think the NIV profitable as the King
James, the word of God is, It does something, right? And it
teaches, it rebukes, it corrects, and it trains the man of God.
And you think about teaching, imparting doctrine and knowledge,
you think about rebuking, don’t do that, but you think about
correction. My last two kids are getting out of braces this
year, and I just paid the final 200 bucks to the orthodontist.
Bless the Lord, praise the Lord. I don’t have any more kids, and
the dog is not getting braces, so I think I’m done with braces.
But what’s orthodontics? It’s straightening the teeth. What’s orthopraxy in the church?
It’s right practice. What’s orthodoxy? It’s right
belief. And so one of the great blessings
of this rich provision is God is going to straighten out his
church. He’s going to straighten out
his people. And isn’t that what faithful preaching and teaching
will do? We begin to kind of have these
aha moments and we begin to say, you know, I’ve been doing it
wrong. Or we repent and say, Lord, all these years and ignorance,
all these years and well, just kind of tumbling along after
others. Or like the Israelites who said, give us a King Samuel,
just like the other nations. What do we often say to our pastor?
Not y’all. Can we please have a Christmas tree in the church
just like all the other churches? You know, can we please, you
know, build a gymnasium just like all the other churches?
Can we please, you fill in the blank. And it’s why our churches
are so filled with things that aren’t commanded and aren’t beneficial
to the people of God. They are things that can be done
six other days. But the day of the Lord is to
be special and to be ordered after his commands. We want to
be people of the book. And here they get a fresh start.
They get to do over and it’s going to be radical. It’s going
to be heart surgery. It’s going to be life changing,
community changing, nation changing. And our passage tells us of God’s
rich provision. This Ezra, did you notice he
traces them all the way back to Aaron, the great high priest,
the brother of Moses. It traces them all the way back.
Here’s his pedigree. Here’s his, here’s his papers,
right? This is this Ezra. You know, you can imagine like
Smith, you know, it’s this Smith. Let’s it’s this Ezra. This Ezra
went up from Babylonia, this Ezra with this resume, this Ezra,
who is a blue blood of Israel, this Ezra sort of like Paul. the Hebrew of Hebrews, this Ezra
is the one that came back. And there’s several things about
this Ezra. He’s a priest, he’s a scribe,
he’s skilled, he’s blessed, and he is devoted. I want to think
about these five things right quick. First of all, he’s a priest,
not primarily, though other priests around who will do most of the
priestly work, but he’s of the priestly lineage. And he’s going
to primarily teach them what the law of Moses says for these
Israelites to do. But I’m sure he’ll participate
in the liturgy. I’m sure he’ll participate along the way. Sometimes
we learn by hearing, but sometimes we learn by seeing. Ask a child,
what’s church like? And I say, well, there’s the
preacher, there’s the steeple, there’s the table up front, there’s the
pulpit. I think of the little girl, Amelia, who walks around
and does laps, because she’s a year and a half old now and
full of energy. And I bet you she could tell you, if her vocabulary
would allow, where the big mirror is. She loves to look at the
mirror in the bridal room and on and on. But she is learning
church by being here and seeing and talking. And that’s a lot
of how it works. Well, Ezra’s a priest, and so
he will show through the liturgy, but he will tell through the
word. He’s also a scribe. That meant he was a copyist.
They didn’t have apples, Macs, or PCs. They hadn’t been sent
from hell yet to the world. That’s a joke. Apple PC. He was
a copyist, though. They had to write. They had to
copy God’s word. And so a scribe would have known
his way around the Old Testament. A scribe would have known the
words The verb tenses would have known where a word is, where
it’s used elsewhere. They would have had so much repetition
in writing the word. You know, they say nowadays,
if you… If you handwrite something, you
remember it, but everybody wants a laptop now, or a tablet, and
so they type. I’ve told my kids, if you can
get through school by handwriting all your notes, you’ll remember
most of what you ever, and it’s the same way with your Bible
study. You get a real Bible, and some pens, and some highlighters,
and work your way through your Bible, and you’ll remember, oh
yeah, that’s in Hebrews. I don’t remember where, but it’s
on the left-hand facing page, left-hand column, where the coffee
stain is. It really works that way. And
so a scribe had the great blessing of being in the word so much. He knew books and papers, but
he knew words and themes and he could connect the dots because
it went through his head, through his hands and into his heart.
We know that for Ezra set his heart to study the law of the
Lord. He was not just a cog in a machine
on an assembly line producing scrolls. He had been possibly
in the royal courts. We’re not told like Nehemiah.
I remember Nehemiah was sad and cast down and the king said,
what’s wrong? And, uh, I’m gonna be in trouble. I just love the
land where my people came and I’d love to go back and help
because I’ve heard the city’s in disrepair. And the king at that point tells
Nehemiah, what do you need? Let’s get you there. And so Nehemiah
comes in for a time as the governor. and with sword in one hand and
trowel in the other, rebuilds. Well, we don’t know the story
behind Ezra, but apparently he was in the court, in the royal
courts, probably using his scribal skills to write down the things
which, oh, what were those foes we ran into? I can’t remember
their names from the last chapters, but remember they’ve said, Oh,
look and see if there’s really a edict and see if Israel’s really
supposed to be rebuilding the temple. Anyway, now he’s in the
court of Jewish affairs. Now he’s back in his own place.
So he’s a priest. He’s a scribe. He’s skilled.
He’s probably quick. He’s probably a good study. He
knows the content. He knows, um, When he sees a
jot or a tittle in the Hebrew language, when he sees it out
of place, he knows he’s an expert in the law of God. And it says
God is blessed on the door has opened for him to return. His
desire is there. He gets permission from the king
of Persia. And he, along with an entourage,
make preparations, and they return to Jerusalem and to Judea, and
they’re given a quick trip. They’re prospered along the way.
And not only that, he’s blessed with his education and his abilities.
And then finally, the fifth thing about him is he is devoted. Verse
10, he set his heart to study the law and to do it. Now, we
live in an era where you go to the Christian bookstore, if there
are any left, and you get a three minutes with Jesus book. and
you get a two minutes with God book, and that little microwave
meal. And because it’s God’s word,
it can help. But doesn’t that show us our attitude? When do
we ever rise up before the sun? And to have a quiet time doesn’t
mean you have to get up early. I know some people can do it
in the afternoons, evening, and if you’re retired, you can do
it a couple times a day. But when is the time where we
sit down with the word and we put our phone to the side? Notice
I said put our phone to the side, get out your real Bible, right?
Where you know what page it’s on, what column it’s on, where
the coffee stain is. Where is the time we live in God’s word
and there’s no TV on, there’s no news on, there’s no nothing
on except God speaking by his word and spirit and we think
on it, we pray on it. We let it soak in and we let
it saturate. That’s the life of Ezra. And it can be our life too. We
may not be paid to study and teach the scripture, but we know
it sure pays to take some time to study and to soak in the scripture. Well, that’s what he does. He
wants to study, he wants to do, and he wants to teach. He wants
to be the man of God who preaches and teaches and explains faithfully. There’s a saying from the Puritans
that our love for the scriptures, our love for theology, our love
for the faith, our love for the church ought to be experiential.
We ought to be able to say to someone, as I was reading in
my Bible today, thus and so, or something I’ve read before
or memorized and called to mind, we ought to be able to say it
because we know it and it’s true, but it ought to pour out of our
heart. It ought to be true that we believe who God is, who the
Son is, who the Spirit is, or we believe this command or that
practice, but it ought to be the joy of our mind and heart
to speak of it experientially. God can use all of you as you
soak in the Bible, your whole mind, your whole body, your whole
spirit. And that’s what we have in the
life of Ezra. Remember the life cycle. of God’s
people, formation, deformation, reformation. It’s a consistent
cycle. And maybe you can identify in
your own life right now. Am I in a spot of spiritual formation? Maybe a new Christian or maybe
I’m in a stretch of deformation. I turn the TV on too much and
never read the Bible. Or maybe I’m in a spirit of reformation.
God has done a mighty work in me to get me to love what he
loves again. I put it up to the side. I got
too worldly. I let my flesh run rampant. Well, let me encourage you as
long as you live because you were bent and you were broken
by the fall and maybe you’ve, um, followed, R.C. Sproul, Ligonier Ministries,
Romans 12, one and two, be transformed by the renewal of your mind.
Remember our minds have been broken by the fall. And part
of Bible teaching, Bible preaching, Bible study is to put back our
minds which have been deformed by sin and to reform them so
that we are like Ezra. We want to know and do and teach
the law of God. Now remember, Ezra is not the
end all be all. Remember, John Calvin is not the end all be
all. I don’t want to add my name to the list because I already
know that. But whoever your local pastor is, is not the end all
be all. It is Jesus. He is the great law keeper. He
is the great student of the scriptures. His desire was to do the will
of the heavenly father. And so we have great encouragement,
I think. to go through a stretch of reformation because the Word
of God, the Word of Christ dwells richly in us. Let’s do pray.
Our Father, we thank you for these reminders of how good you
are through various eras to your church. And we pray that the
Word of God, the Word of Christ would dwell richly and plentifully
among all of us, and that we might seek to reform what has
been deformed and to have you form in us a great knowledge
of the Lord Jesus and all that he is, all that he taught, all
that he expects of us so that we can glorify your great name
and share your gospel with others. Hear us and help us as we make
our prayer in his name, amen.