Esdras 3

The altar rebuilt and the offerings restored

¹When the seventh month came and the Israelites were settled in their towns, the people gathered in Jerusalem as one.

²Then Jeshua son of Jozadak and his fellow priests, together with Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and his relatives, set to work and built the altar of the God of Israel, so that they could offer burnt offerings on it as it is written in the law of Moses, the man of God. ³They set the altar on its old foundations, because they were afraid of the peoples of the lands, and they offered burnt offerings on it to the LORD, the morning and evening burnt offerings.^{a 4}They kept the Festival of Booths as it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings, in the number the ordinance required for each day. ⁵After that they offered the regular burnt offering, the offerings for the new moons and for all the appointed festivals of the LORD that had been made holy, and the offerings of everyone who brought a freewill offering to the LORD. ⁶From the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the LORD, though the foundation of the temple of the LORD had not yet been laid. ⁷They gave money to the stonecutters and the craftsmen, and food, drink and olive oil to the people of Sidon and Tyre, so that they would bring cedar logs from Lebanon by sea to Joppa, as Cyrus king of Persia had authorized them.

The foundation of the temple is laid

⁸In the second month of the second year after they came to the house of God in Jerusalem, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and Jeshua son of Jozadak began the work, together with the rest of their people: the priests, the Levites and all who had come back to Jerusalem from captivity. They appointed the Levites who were twenty years old or more to oversee the work on the house of the LORD.

⁹Jeshua with his sons and his relatives, and Kadmiel and his sons, the descendants of Judah, took their places together to oversee the workers on the house of God, with the descendants of Henadad and their sons and relatives, the Levites.^{b 10}When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the LORD, the priests in their vestments were stationed with trumpets, and the Levites, the descendants of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise the LORD as David king of Israel had directed. ¹¹They sang in response to one another, praising and giving thanks to the LORD: “He is good; his faithful love for Israel lasts forever.” And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD had been laid.

¹²But many of the priests and Levites and heads of families, the old men who had seen the first temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple laid, 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, because the people were shouting so loudly that the sound was heard far away.