The Altar Rebuilt and the Festival Kept
1When the seventh month came and the Israelites were in their towns, the people gathered as one man in Jerusalem. 2Then Jeshua son of Jozadak and his fellow priests, with Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and his kinsmen, set to work and built the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings on it, as it is written in the law of Moses, the man of God. 3They set the altar on its foundations, for the fear of the peoples of the surrounding lands was upon them, and on it they offered burnt offerings to Yahweh, the burnt offerings of morning and evening. 4They kept the Festival of Tabernacles as it is written, with the burnt offerings day by day in the required number, as each day’s duty prescribed; 5and after that the regular burnt offering, and the offerings for the new moons and for all the sacred appointed times of Yahweh, and those of everyone who brought a freewill offering to Yahweh. 6From the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to Yahweh, though the foundation of the temple of Yahweh had not yet been laid. 7They gave money to the stonecutters and the carpenters, and food, drink and oil to the Sidonians and the Tyrians, to bring cedar logs from Lebanon by sea to Joppa, under the authorization Cyrus king of Persia had granted them.
The Foundation of the Temple Is Laid
8In the second month of the second year after their arrival at the house of God in Jerusalem, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and Jeshua son of Jozadak, with the rest of their kinsmen — the priests, the Levites and all who had come back from captivity to Jerusalem — made a beginning; and they put the Levites twenty years old and upward in charge of the work on the house of Yahweh. 9So Jeshua with his sons and kinsmen, and Kadmiel with his sons, the descendants of Judah, took charge together of those doing the work on the house of God, and with them the sons of Henadad with their sons and kinsmen, the Levites. 10When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of Yahweh, the priests took their places in their vestments with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise Yahweh according to the directions of David king of Israel. 11They sang in turn, praising and giving thanks to Yahweh: “He is good; his love for Israel lasts for ever.” And all the people raised a great shout of praise to Yahweh, because the foundation of the house of Yahweh had been laid. 12But many of the priests and Levites and heads of families, the old men who had seen the first house, wept aloud as this house was founded before their eyes, while many others shouted for joy. 13No one could tell the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of the people’s weeping, for the people were shouting so loudly that the noise was heard far away.
