⁶ “So give orders that cedars^(A) of Lebanon be cut for me. My men will work with yours, and I will pay you for your men whatever wages you set. You know that we have no one so skilled in felling timber as the Sidonians.”

³ In the first year of King Cyrus, the king issued a decree concerning the temple of God in Jerusalem:

Let the temple be rebuilt as a place to present sacrifices, and let its foundations be laid.^(A) It is to be sixty cubits^[a] high and sixty cubits wide, ⁴ with three courses^(B) of large stones and one of timbers. The costs are to be paid by the royal treasury.^{(C) 5} Also, the gold^(D) and silver articles of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took from the temple in Jerusalem and brought to Babylon, are to be returned to their places in the temple in Jerusalem; they are to be deposited in the house of God.^(E)

² “This is what Cyrus king of Persia says:

“‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed^(A) me to build^(B) a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. ³ Any of his people among you may go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the Lord, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem, and may their God be with them. ⁴ And in any locality where survivors^(C) may now be living, the people are to provide them with silver and gold,^(D) with goods and livestock, and with freewill offerings^(E) for the temple of God^(F) in Jerusalem.’”^(G)