⁶ From the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the Lord, although the foundation of the temple of the Lord had not been laid. ⁷ They also gave money to the masons and the carpenters, and ^(A)food, drink, and oil to the people of Sidon and Tyre to bring cedar logs from Lebanon to the sea, to ^(B)Joppa, ^(C)according to the permission which they had from Cyrus king of Persia.

Restoration of the Temple Begins

⁸ Now in the second month of the second year of their coming to the house of God at Jerusalem, ^(D)Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, Jeshua the son of ^[a]Jozadak, and the rest of their brethren the priests and the Levites, and all those who had come out of the captivity to Jerusalem, began work ^(E)and appointed the Levites from twenty years old and above to oversee the work of the house of the Lord.