1When the seventh month arrived, and the sons of Israel were in the towns, the people gathered as one man to Jerusalem.
2Then Jeshua son of Jozadak and his brothers the priests, and Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and his brothers, arose and built the altar of the God of Israel, to offer up burnt offerings on it as written in the law of Moses the man of God.
3They set the altar upon its foundations, for terror was upon them because of the peoples of the lands, and they offered up burnt offerings on it to Yahweh, burnt offerings for the morning and for the evening.
4And they kept the Feast of Booths as written, with the daily burnt offerings by number, according to the ordinance, the matter of each day on its day.
5And after this, the continual burnt offering, and those for the new moons and for all the appointed festivals of Yahweh that are consecrated, and for everyone who offered a freewill offering to Yahweh.
6From the first day of the seventh month they began to offer up burnt offerings to Yahweh, but the foundation of the temple of Yahweh had not yet been laid.
7So they gave silver to the stonecutters and to the craftsmen, and food and drink and oil to the Sidonians and to the Tyrians, to bring cedar timber from Lebanon to the sea of Joppa, according to the authorization granted them by Cyrus king of Persia.
8Now in the second year of their coming to the house of God at Jerusalem, in the second month, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and Jeshua son of Jozadak and the rest of their brothers — the priests and the Levites and all who had come from the captivity to Jerusalem — began; and they appointed the Levites from twenty years old and upward to oversee the work of the house of Yahweh.
9And Jeshua stood, with his sons and his brothers, Kadmiel and his sons, the sons of Judah, as one, to oversee those doing the work in the house of God; also the sons of Henadad, with their sons and their brothers, the Levites.
10When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of Yahweh, the priests stood arrayed 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.
11And they answered one another in praise and thanksgiving to Yahweh: “For he is good, for his loyal love toward Israel endures forever.” And all the people shouted a great shout in praise to Yahweh, because the foundation of the house of Yahweh had been laid.
12But many of the priests and the Levites and the heads of the fathers’ houses, the old men who had seen the first house, when its foundation was laid before their eyes — this house — wept with a loud voice, while many shouted aloud for joy.
13And the people could not distinguish the sound of the shout of joy from the sound of the weeping of the people, for the people were shouting a great shout, and the sound was heard from far away.
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