Ezra 3

¹ When the seventh month came and the sons of Israel were in their own towns, they all gathered as one man in Jerusalem.

² Jeshua son of Jozadak, with his brother priests, and Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, with his brothers, began to rebuild the altar of the God of Israel, to offer holocausts there, as it is written in the Law of Moses the man of God.

³ The altar was set up on its old site, despite their fear of the surrounding peoples, and on it they offered holocausts to Yahweh, holocausts morning and evening;

⁴ they celebrated the feast of Tabernacles, according to the written Law, with as many daily holocausts as are ordained for each day;

⁵ then, in addition to the perpetual holocaust, they offered those prescribed for the sabbaths, New Moon feasts and all the solemnities 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 offering holocausts to Yahweh, though the foundations of the sanctuary of Yahweh had not yet been laid.

⁷ Then they gave money to the masons and carpenters; to the Sidonians and Tyrians they gave food, drink and oil, so that they would bring 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; they appointed the Levites who were twenty years old or more to superintend the work on the Temple of Yahweh.

⁹ So Jeshua, his sons and his brothers, with Kadmiel, Binnui and Hodaviah, agreed to superintend the workmen at the Temple of God.

¹⁰ When the builders had laid the foundations of the sanctuary of Yahweh, the priests in fine linen came 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, ‘For he is good, for his love for Israel is everlasting’. And all the people shouted aloud the praises of Yahweh, since the foundations of the Temple of Yahweh had now been laid.

¹² True, many priests and Levites, many heads of families, who were then old and had seen with their own eyes the earlier Temple on its foundations, wept aloud, but many others raised their voices in shouts of joy.

¹³ And nobody could distinguish the shouts of joy from the sound of the people’s weeping; for the people shouted so loudly that the noise could be heard far away.