When the seventh month came, and the children of Israel were in
the towns, the people gathered as one man to Jerusalem. Then arose
Jeshua the son of Jozadak, with his fellow priests, and Zerubbabel
the son of Shealtiel with his kinsmen, and they 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. They set the altar in its
place, for fear was on them because of the peoples of the lands,
and they offered burnt offerings on it to the LORD, burnt offerings
morning and evening. And they kept the Feast of Booths, as it is
written, and offered the daily burnt offerings by number according
to the rule, as each day required, and after that the regular burnt
offerings, the offerings at the new moon and at all the appointed
feasts of the LORD, and the offerings of everyone who made a
freewill offering to the LORD. From the first day of the seventh
month they began to offer burnt offerings to the LORD. But the
foundation of the temple of the LORD was not yet laid. So they gave
money to the masons and the carpenters, and food, drink, and oil to
the Sidonians and the Tyrians to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to
the sea, to Joppa, according to the grant that they had from Cyrus
king of Persia.
Now in the second year after their coming to the house of God at
Jerusalem, in the second month, Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and
Jeshua the son of Jozadak made a beginning, together with the rest
of their kinsmen, the priests and the Levites and all who had come
to Jerusalem from the captivity. They appointed the Levites, from
twenty years old and upward, to supervise the work of the house of
the LORD. And Jeshua with his sons and his brothers, and Kadmiel
and his sons, the sons of Judah, together supervised the workmen in
the house of God, along with the sons of Henadad and the Levites,
their sons and brothers.
And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the
LORD, the priests in their vestments came forward with trumpets,
and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise the
LORD, according to the directions of David king of Israel. And they
sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the LORD,
“For he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever toward Israel.”
And all the people shouted with a great shout when they
praised the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD
was laid. But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers'
houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud
voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid, though
many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not
distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the
people's weeping, for the people shouted with a great shout, and
the sound was heard far away.
