When the king awoke, they took the writing and gave it to him, and he read it: As discussed in 1 Esdras 3.8 (see the comments there), the pronoun they refers to the servants of the king who took care of making the bed when the king got up in the morning. The text omits the logical steps of the king getting out of bed after waking, and of the servants finding the writing. Readers may be helped if translators add these ideas as in our following model of this verse:

• When the king got up [or, arose from sleep] the next morning, his servants found the letters [or, writing], and took them to the king, who read them.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on 1-2 Esdras. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2019. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.