¹² And Peter, seeing it, answered the people, You men of Israel, why are you so surprised and wondering at this? Why do you keep staring at us, as though by our [own individual] power or [active] piety we had made this man [able] to walk?

¹³ The God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob, the God of our forefathers, has glorified His Servant and ^[a]Son Jesus [doing Him this honor], Whom you indeed delivered up and denied and rejected and disowned in the presence of Pilate, when he had determined to let Him go.^(A)

¹⁴ But you denied and rejected and disowned the Pure and Holy, the Just and Blameless One, and demanded [the pardon of] a murderer to be granted to you.

¹⁵ But you killed the very Source (the Author) of life, Whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses.

¹⁶ And His name, through and by faith in His name, has made this man whom you see and recognize well and strong. [Yes] the faith which is through and by Him [Jesus] has given the man this perfect soundness [of body] before all of you.

¹⁷ And now, brethren, I know that you acted in ignorance [not aware of what you were doing], as did your rulers also.

¹⁸ Thus has God fulfilled what He foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ (the Messiah) should undergo ill treatment and be afflicted and suffer.

¹⁹ So repent (change your mind and purpose); turn around and return [to God], that your sins may be erased (blotted out, wiped clean), that times of refreshing (of recovering from the effects of heat, of ^[b]reviving with fresh air) may come from the presence of the Lord;

²⁰ And that He may send [to you] the Christ (the Messiah), Who before was designated and appointed for you—even Jesus,

²¹ Whom heaven must receive [and retain] until the time for the complete restoration of all that God spoke by the mouth of all His holy prophets for ages past [from the most ancient time in the memory of man].

²² Thus Moses said to the forefathers, The Lord God will raise up for you a Prophet from among your brethren as [He raised up] me; Him you shall listen to and understand by hearing and heed in all things whatever He tells you.

²³ And it shall be that every soul that does not listen to and understand by hearing and heed that Prophet shall be utterly ^[c]exterminated from among the people.^(B)

²⁴ Indeed, all the prophets from Samuel and those who came afterwards, as many as have spoken, also promised and foretold and proclaimed these days.

²⁵ You are the descendants (sons) of the prophets and the heirs of the covenant which God made and gave to your forefathers, saying to Abraham, And in your Seed (Heir) shall all the families of the earth be blessed and benefited.^(C)

²⁶ It was to you first that God sent His Servant and Son Jesus, when He raised Him up [^[d]provided and gave Him for us], to bless you in turning every one of you from your wickedness and evil ways.^(D)

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3 When the seventh month came and the Israelites were in the towns, the people gathered together as one man to Jerusalem.

² Then stood up Jeshua son of Jozadak, and his brethren the priests, and Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, and his brethren, and they built the altar of the God of Israel to offer burnt offerings upon it, as it is written in the ^[a]instructions of Moses the man of God.

³ And they set the altar [in its place] upon its base, for fear was upon them because of the peoples of the countries; and they offered burnt offerings on it to the Lord morning and evening.

⁴ They kept also the Feast of Tabernacles, as it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings by number according to the ordinances, as each day’s duty required,

⁵ And after that, the continual burnt offering, the offering at the New Moon, and at all the appointed feasts of the Lord, and the offerings of everyone who made a freewill offering to the Lord.

⁶ From the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the Lord, but the foundation of the temple of the Lord was not yet laid.

⁷ They gave money also to the masons and to the carpenters, and gave food, drink, and oil to the Sidonians and the Tyrians, to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the seaport of Joppa, according to the grant they had from Cyrus king of Persia.

⁸ In the second year of their coming to God’s house at Jerusalem, in the second month, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and Jeshua son of Jozadak made a beginning, with the rest of their brethren—the priests and Levites and all who had come to Jerusalem out of the captivity. They appointed the Levites from twenty years old and upward to oversee the work of the Lord’s house.

⁹ Then Jeshua with his sons and his kinsmen, Kadmiel and his sons, sons of Judah, together took the oversight of the workmen in the house of God—the sons of Henadad, with their sons and Levite kinsmen.

¹⁰ And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests stood in their vestments with trumpets, and the Levite sons of Asaph with their cymbals, to praise the Lord, after the order of David king of Israel.

¹¹ They sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the Lord, saying, For He is good, for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever toward Israel. And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid!

¹² But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the first house [Solomon’s temple], when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice, though many shouted aloud for joy.

¹³ So the people could not distinguish the shout of joy from the sound of the weeping of the people, for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the sound was heard far off.

4 Now when [the Samaritans] the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the exiles from the captivity were building a temple to the Lord, the God of Israel,

² They came to Zerubbabel [now governor] and to the heads of the fathers’ houses and said, Let us build with you, for we seek and worship your God as you do, and we have sacrificed to Him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria, who brought us here.^(A)

³ But Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the rest of the heads of fathers’ houses of Israel said to them, You have nothing to do with us in building a house to our God; but we ourselves will together build to the Lord, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus, the king of Persia, has commanded us.

⁴ Then [the Samaritans] the people of the land [continually] weakened the hands of the people of Judah and troubled and terrified them in building

⁵ And hired counselors against them to frustrate their purpose and plans all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius [II] king of Persia.

⁶ And in the reign of Ahasuerus [or Xerxes], in the beginning of his reign, [the Samaritans] wrote to him an accusation against the [returned] inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem.

⁷ Later, in the days of King Artaxerxes, Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of their associates wrote to Artaxerxes king of Persia; and the letter was written in the Syrian or Aramaic script and interpreted in that language.

⁸ Rehum the [Persian] commander [of the Samaritans] and Shimshai the scribe wrote a letter against Jerusalem to Artaxerxes the king of this sort—

⁹ Then wrote Rehum the [Persian] commander, Shimshai the scribe, and the rest of their associates—the Dinaites, the Apharsathchites, the Tarpelites, the Apharsites, the Archevites, the Babylonians, the Susanchites, the Dehaites, the Elamites,

¹⁰ And the rest of the nations whom the great and noble Osnappar deported and settled in the city of Samaria and the rest of the country beyond [west of] the Euphrates River, and so forth.

¹¹ This is a copy of the letter which they sent to King Artaxerxes: Your servants, the men beyond [that is, west of] the River [Euphrates], and so forth.

¹² Be it known to the king that the Jews who came up from you to us have come to Jerusalem. This rebellious and bad city they are rebuilding, and have restored its walls and repaired the foundations.

¹³ Be it known now to the king that if this city is rebuilt and the walls finished, then they will not pay tribute, custom, or toll, and the royal revenue will be diminished.

¹⁴ Now because we eat the salt of the king’s palace and it is not proper for us to witness the king’s discredit, therefore we send to inform the king,

¹⁵ In order that a search may be made in the book of the records of your fathers, in which you will learn that this is a rebellious city, hurtful to kings and provinces, and that sedition was stirred up in it of old. That is why [it] was laid waste.

¹⁶ We declare to the king that if this city is rebuilt and its walls finished, it will mean that you will have no portion on this side of the [Euphrates] River.

¹⁷ Then the king sent an answer: To Rehum the [Persian] official, to Shimshai the scribe, to the rest of their companions who dwell in Samaria and in the rest of the country beyond the River: Greetings.

¹⁸ The letter which you sent to us has been plainly read before me.

¹⁹ I commanded and search has been made, and it is found that this city [Jerusalem] of old time has made insurrection against kings and that rebellion and sedition have been made in it.

²⁰ There have been mighty kings also over Jerusalem who have ruled over all countries beyond [west of] the [Euphrates] River, and tribute, custom, and toll were paid to them.

²¹ Therefore give a decree to make these men stop, that this city not be rebuilt, until a command is given by me.

²² Be sure that you do this. Why should damage grow, to the hurt of the kings?

²³ When the copy of King Artaxerxes’ letter was read before Rehum, Shimshai the scribe, and their companions, they went up in haste to Jerusalem to the Jews and by force and power made them cease.

²⁴ Then the ^[b]work on the house of God in Jerusalem stopped. It stopped until the second year of Darius [I] king of Persia.