Ezra - Chapter 3

¹ When the seventh month came after the Israelites had been resettled in their towns, the people gathered as one person in Jerusalem.

² Then Jeshua son of Jozadak, with his brother priests, and Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, with his brothers, set about rebuilding the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings on it as prescribed in the Law of Moses man of God.

³ They erected the altar on its old site, despite their fear of the people of the country, and on it they presented burnt offerings to Yahweh, burnt offerings morning and evening;

⁴ they celebrated the feast of Shelters as prescribed, offering daily the number of burnt offerings required from day to day,

⁵ and in addition presented the continual burnt offerings prescribed for the Sabbaths, for the New Moons and for all the festivals sacred to Yahweh, as well as those voluntary offerings made by individuals to Yahweh.

⁶ From the first day of the seventh month they began presenting burnt offerings to Yahweh, though the foundations of the Temple of Yahweh had not yet been laid.

⁷ They also contributed money for the masons and carpenters, and food, drink and oil for the Sidonians and Tyrians for bringing cedar wood from Lebanon by sea to Jaffa, for which Cyrus king of Persia had given permission.

⁸ It was in the second month of the second year after their arrival at the Temple of God in Jerusalem that Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and Jeshua son of Jozadak, with the rest of their brothers, the priests, the Levites and all the people who had returned to Jerusalem from captivity, began the work by appointing some of the Levites who were twenty years old or more to superintend the work on the Temple of Yahweh.

⁹ The Levites, Jeshua, his sons and his brothers, with Kadmiel, Binnui and his sons, the sons of Hodaviah, agreed to superintend the men working on the Temple of God.

¹⁰ When the builders had laid the foundations of the Temple of Yahweh, the priests in their robes stood forward with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise Yahweh according to the ordinances of David king of Israel.

¹¹ They chanted praise and thanksgiving to Yahweh because for Israel, they said, 'he is good, and everlasting in his faithful love.' Then all the people raised a mighty shout of praise to Yahweh, since the foundations of the Temple of Yahweh had now been laid.

¹² Many of the older priests, Levites and heads of families, who had seen the first temple, wept very loudly when the foundations of this one were laid before their eyes, but many others shouted aloud for joy,

¹³ so that nobody could distinguish the noise of the joyful shout from the noise of the people's weeping; for the people shouted so loudly that the noise could be heard far away.

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