First Esdras (called 3 Esdras in the Latin tradition and Esdras A in the Greek) is a book preserved in Greek in the Septuagint that largely parallels material found in the Hebrew Bible (the last chapters of 2 Chronicles, the whole of the book of Ezra, and part of Nehemiah), recounting the end of the Kingdom of Judah, the Babylonian exile, the return under Cyrus, the rebuilding of the Temple, and the reforms of the scribe Ezra. It is not, however, a simple translation: it rearranges the order of events and, most strikingly, contains a passage with no parallel in the canonical books, the celebrated "Debate of the Three Guardsmen" (chapters 3-4).
In this episode three young bodyguards of the Persian king Darius compete to name the strongest thing in the world: one says wine, one the king, and the third, identified with Zerubbabel, says that women are strong but truth is strongest of all and conquers everything. His answer wins him the king's favour and the commission to rebuild Jerusalem. The book was probably compiled in the second century BCE, and its relationship to the canonical Ezra-Nehemiah, whether it draws on them or on a common older source, remains debated.