Ezra 6

¹ Then, on the order of King Darius, a search was made in Babylonia in the muniment rooms where the archives were kept;

² at Ecbatana, the fortress situated in the province of Media, a scroll was found which ran thus:’Memorandum.

³ ‘In the first year of Cyrus the king, King Cyrus decreed: “Temple of God in Jerusalem. The Temple will be rebuilt at a place at which sacrifices are offered and to which offerings are brought to be burnt. Its height is to be sixty cubits, its width sixty cubits.

⁴ There are to be three thicknesses of stone blocks and one of wood. The expense is to be met by the king’s household.

⁵ Furthermore, the vessels of gold and silver from the Temple of God which Nebuchadnezzar took from the sanctuary in Jerusalem and, brought to Babylon are to be restored so that everything may be restored to the sanctuary in Jerusalem and be put back in the Temple of God.”

⁶ ‘Wherefore, Tattenai, satrap of Transeuphrates, Shethar-bozenai and you, their colleagues, the officials of Transeuphrates, withdraw from there;

⁷ leave the high commissioner of Judah and the elders of the Jews to work on this Temple of God; they are to rebuild this Temple of God on its ancient site.

⁸ This, I decree, is how you must assist the elders of the Jews in the reconstruction of this Temple of God: the expenses of these people are to be paid, promptly and without fail, from the royal revenue-that is, from the tribute of Transeuphrates.

⁹ What they need for holocausts to the God of heaven: young bulls, rams and lambs, as also wheat, salt, wine and oil, is to be supplied to them daily, without fail, as required by the priests of Jerusalem,

¹⁰ so that they may offer acceptable sacrifices to the God of heaven and pray for the lives of the king and his sons.

¹¹ I also decree this: If anyone disobeys this edict, a beam is to be torn from his house, he is to be pilloried upright on it and his house is to be made into a dung heap for this crime.

¹² May the God who causes his name to live there overthrow any king or people who dares to defy this and destroy the Temple of God in Jerusalem! I, Darius, have issued this decree. Let it be obeyed to the letter!’

¹³ Then Tattenai, satrap of Transeuphrates, Shethar-bozenai and their colleagues obeyed to the letter the instructions sent by King Darius.

¹⁴ The elders of the Jews, for their part, prospered with their building, inspired by Haggai the prophet and Zechariah son of Iddo. They finished the building in accordance with the order of the God of Israel and the order of Cyrus and of Darius.

¹⁵ this Temple was finished on the twenty-third day of the month of Adar; it was the sixth year of the reign of King Darius[*a].

¹⁶ The Israelites-the priests, the Levites and the remainder of the exiles-joyfully dedicated this Temple of God;

¹⁷ for the dedication of this Temple of God they offered one hundred bulls, two hundred rams, four hundred lambs and, as a sacrifice for sin for the whole of Israel, twelve he-goats, corresponding to the number of the tribes of Israel.

¹⁸ Then they installed the priests according to their orders in the service of the Temple of God in Jerusalem, as is written in the Book of Moses.

¹⁹ The exiles celebrated the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month.

²⁰ The Levites, as one man, had purified themselves; all were pure, so they sacrificed the passover for all the exiles, for their brothers the priests and for themselves.

²¹ The following ate the passover: the Israelites who had returned from exile and all those who, having broken with the impurity of the surrounding peoples, joined them to seek Yahweh, the God of Israel.

²² For seven days they joyfully celebrated the feast of Unleavened Bread, for Yahweh had given them cause to rejoice, having moved the heart of the king of Assyria to encourage their work on the Temple of God, the God of Israel.