CHAPTER 6

¹Then King Darius put forth a decree, and they searched in the library in which the archives rested in Babylonia. ²And in Ahemeta, in the capital city, which is in the province of Media, a certain scroll was found, and thus was written in it—a memorandum. ³In the first year of King Cyrus, King Cyrus put forth a decree: “The house of God in Jerusalem, the house shall be rebuilt, the site on which sacrifices are offered, its foundations raised up, its height sixty cubits, its width sixty cubits, ⁴three rows of hewn stone and one row of timber, and the expenses shall be granted by the house of the king. ⁵And the vessels as well of the house of God, of gold and silver, that Nebuchadnezzar took out from the Temple in Jerusalem and brought to Babylonia, they shall bring back and place in the Temple that is in Jerusalem, to its site, and they shall set them in the house of God.” ⁶Now Tattenai the satrap of Beyond the River, Shethar-Bozenai, and their associates the inspectors of Beyond the River were far away from there: “⁷Leave the work of the house of God to the satrap of the Jews and to the Jewish elders. This house of God they shall rebuild on its site. ⁸And by me a decree is put forth about what you shall do with these Jewish elders to rebuild this house of God, and from the king’s possessions from the taxes of Beyond the River the expenses shall be paid out scrupulously to these men, that they not be halted in the work. ⁹And what they require in bulls and rams and sheep for burnt offerings to the God of the heavens, wheat, salt, wine, oil according to the pronouncements of the priest, shall be given to them each day without fail, ¹⁰so that they may sacrifice fragrant incense to the God of the heavens and that they may pray for the life of the king and his children. ¹¹And by me is a decree put forth that any man who alters this word, a beam shall be torn from his house and he shall be impaled upon it upright and his house shall be turned into rubble for this. ¹²And the God Who makes His name dwell there shall destroy any king or people that reaches out a hand to alter or to damage this house of God which is in Jerusalem. I Darius have put forth a decree. Scrupulously shall it be done.” ¹³Then Tattenai satrap of Beyond the River, Shethar-Bozenai, and their associates, because King Darius had thus sent, did it scrupulously. ¹⁴And the Jewish elders were building and prospering by the prophecy of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah son of Iddo, and they built and finished it by the decree of the God of Israel and by the decree of Cyrus and Darius and Artaxerxes kings of Persia. ¹⁵And this house was completed on the third day of the month of Adar, which was the sixth year of the reign of King Darius. ¹⁶And the Israelites, priests and Levites, and the rest of the exiles made a joyous dedication of this house of God. ¹⁷And they sacrificed for the dedication of this house of God a hundred bulls, two hundred rams, four hundred sheep, and he-goats as an offense offering for all Israel twelve for the number of the tribes of Israel. ¹⁸And they established priests in their divisions and Levites in their ranks over the service of the God that is in Jerusalem according to the writ of the Book of Moses. ¹⁹And the exiles performed the Passover on the fourteenth of the first month. ²⁰For the priests and the Levites had together purified themselves, they all were pure, and they slaughtered the Passover for all the exiles and for their brothers the priests and for themselves. ²¹And the Israelites who had returned from the exile and all who had separated themselves from the uncleanness of the nations of the land to seek out the LORD God of Israel ate of it. ²²And they joyously celebrated the Festival of Flatbread seven days, for the LORD had made them joyful and had inclined the heart of the king of Assyria toward them to strengthen their hands in the task of the house of God, the God of Israel.