Altar and Sacrifices Restored
1 By the seventh month, when the Israelites were living in the cities, the people gathered together as one in Jerusalem.
2 Then Jeshua the son of Jozadak stood up with his brothers the priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and his brothers, 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. 3 In spite of their fear because of the peoples of the surrounding lands, they set the altar on its base, and they offered burnt offerings on it to the Lord, burnt offerings morning and evening.
4 They kept the feast of booths, as it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings by number, according to the ordinance, as the duty of every day required, 5 and afterward the continual burnt offering, the offerings of the new moons, of all the set feasts of the Lord that were consecrated and of everyone who willingly offered a free will offering to the Lord.
6 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. 7 They also gave money to the masons and to the carpenters. They also gave food, drink, and oil to the people of Sidon and Tyre, to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea, to Joppa, according to the grant that they had from Cyrus King of Persia.
Temple Restoration Begins
8 Now in the second year of their coming to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, in the second month, Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and the rest of their brothers the priests and the Levites, and all those who had come from captivity to Jerusalem, began the work and appointed the Levites, from twenty years old and up, to oversee the work of the house of the Lord. 9 Then Jeshua stood with his sons and his brothers, Kadmiel and his sons, the sons of Judah, together, to oversee the workmen in the house of the Lord; the sons of Henadad, with their sons and their brothers the Levites.
10 When the builders laid the foundation of the Lord’s temple, they set the priests in their clothing with trumpets, with the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise the Lord, according to the directions of David king of Israel. 11 They sang to one another in praising and giving thanks to the Lord,
“For he is good,
for his loving kindness endures forever toward Israel.”
All the people shouted with a loud voice of praise to the Lord because the foundation of the house of the Lord had been laid.
12 But many of the priests and Levites and heads of families, the old men who had seen the first house when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice. Many also shouted aloud for joy 13 so that the people could not discern the sound of shouting for joy from the sound of the people weeping, for the people shouted loudly, and the sound was heard far away.