Facing opposition

4 When the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the returned exiles were building a temple for the Lord, the God of Israel, ² they came to Zerubbabel and the heads of the families and said to them, “Let’s build with you, for we worship your God as you do, and we’ve been sacrificing to him ever since the days of Assyria’s King Esarhaddon, who brought us here.”

³ But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of the families in Israel replied, “You’ll have no part with us in building a house for our God. We alone will build because the Lord, the God of Israel, and Persia’s King Cyrus commanded us.”

⁴ The neighboring peoples^[a] discouraged the people of Judah, made them afraid to build, ⁵ and bribed officials to frustrate their plan. They did this throughout the rule of Persia’s King Cyrus until the rule of Persia’s King Darius.

²⁴ At that time the work on God’s house in Jerusalem stopped and was suspended until the second year of the rule of Persia’s King Darius.

Work on God’s house continues

5 Then the prophet Haggai and the prophet Zechariah, Iddo’s son, prophesied to the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of Israel’s God who was over them. ² Subsequently, Zerubbabel, Shealtiel’s son, and Jeshua, Jozadak’s son, began to rebuild God’s house in Jerusalem. God’s prophets were with them, helping them.

³ At the same time, Tattenai, the governor of the province Beyond the River, and Shethar-bozenai and their colleagues came to them and spoke to them, asking, “Who authorized you to build this house and finish preparing^[a] this building material?”^{[b] 4} They^[c] also asked them, “What are the names of the people who are building this building?” ⁵ But their God looked after the elders of the Jews, and they didn’t stop them until a report reached Darius and a letter with his response had arrived.

Writing to King Darius

⁶ This is a copy of the letter that Tattenai, the governor of the province Beyond the River, and Shethar-bozenai and his colleagues the officials who were in the province Beyond the River sent to King Darius. ⁷ In the message they sent him, the following was written:

¹⁴ So the elders of the Jews built and prospered because of the prophesying of the prophet Haggai and Zechariah, Iddo’s son. They finished building by the command of Israel’s God and of Cyrus, Darius, and King Artaxerxes of Persia. ¹⁵ This house was completed on the third day of the month of Adar,^[a] in the sixth year of the rule of King Darius.

¹⁶ Then the Israelites, the priests and the Levites, and the rest of the returned exiles joyfully celebrated the dedication of this house of God. ¹⁷ At the dedication of this house of God, they offered one hundred bulls, two hundred rams, four hundred lambs, and as a purification offering for all Israel, twelve male goats, according to the number of the tribes of Israel. ¹⁸ They set the priests in their divisions and the Levites in their sections for the service of God in Jerusalem, as it is written in the scroll from Moses.