Permission to return to Jerusalem

1 In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia’s rule, to fulfill the Lord’s word spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Persia’s King Cyrus. The king issued a proclamation throughout his kingdom (it was also in writing) that stated:

Preparing to return

⁵ Then the heads of the families of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and the Levites—everyone whose spirit God had stirred up—got ready to go up and build God’s house in Jerusalem. ⁶ All their neighbors assisted them with silver equipment, with gold, with goods, livestock, and valuable gifts, in addition to all that was freely offered. ⁷ King Cyrus brought out the equipment of the Lord’s house—those items that Nebuchadnezzar brought from Jerusalem and placed in the house of his gods. ⁸ Persia’s King Cyrus handed them over to Mithredath the treasurer, who counted them out to Sheshbazzar the prince of Judah. ⁹ This was the count: thirty gold dishes, one thousand silver dishes, twenty-nine knives,^{[b] 10} thirty gold bowls, four hundred ten larger^[c] silver bowls, and one thousand other objects. ¹¹ The total of the gold and silver objects numbered five thousand four hundred. Sheshbazzar brought up all of these when the exiles went up from Babylonia to Jerusalem.

Rebuilding the altar

3 When the seventh month^[a] came and the Israelites were in their towns, the people gathered together as one in Jerusalem. ² Then Jeshua, Jozadak’s son along with his fellow priests, and Zerubbabel, Shealtiel’s son along with his kin, started to rebuild the altar of Israel’s God so that they might offer entirely burned offerings upon it as prescribed in the Instruction from Moses the man of God. ³ They set up the altar on its foundations,^[b] because they were afraid of the neighboring peoples,^[c] and they offered entirely burned offerings upon it to the Lord, both the morning and the evening offerings.

⁴ They celebrated the Festival of Booths, as prescribed. Every day they presented the number of entirely burned offerings required by ordinance for that day. ⁵ After this, they presented the continual burned offerings, the offerings at the new moons, and at all the sacred feasts of the Lord, and the offerings of everyone who brought a spontaneous gift to the Lord. ⁶ From the first day of the seventh month, they began to present entirely burned offerings to the Lord.

However, the foundation of the Lord’s temple had not yet been laid. ⁷ So they gave money to the masons and carpenters; and food, drink, and oil to the Sidonians and the Tyrians to bring cedarwood by sea from Lebanon to Joppa, according to the authorization given them by Persia’s King Cyrus.

Laying the foundations of God’s house

⁸ In the second month of the second year after their arrival at God’s house in Jerusalem, Zerubbabel, Shealtiel’s son, and Jeshua, Jozadak’s son, and the rest of their kin—the priests and the Levites and all who had come from the captivity to Jerusalem—made a beginning. They appointed Levites 20 years old and above to oversee the work on the Lord’s house. ⁹ Then Jeshua with his sons and his kin, Kadmiel and his sons, Binnui and his sons, the sons of Judah, along with the sons of Henadad, the Levites, and their sons and kin, collaborated to supervise the workers in God’s house.

¹⁰ When the builders laid the foundation of the Lord’s temple, the priests clothed in their vests and carrying their trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, arose to praise the Lord according to the directions of Israel’s King David. ¹¹ They praised and gave thanks to the Lord, singing responsively, “He is good, his graciousness for Israel lasts forever.”

All of the people shouted with praise to the Lord because the foundation of the Lord’s house had been laid. ¹² But many of the older priests and Levites and heads of families, who had seen the first house, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this house, although many others shouted loudly with joy. ¹³ No one could distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping, because the people rejoiced very loudly. The sound was heard at a great distance.