Ezra 6

1 Then Darius the king gave an order, and he searched the record rooms, where the treasure is kept in Babylon. 2 And in a city, in the fortified palace of the city of the Medes, one scroll was found, and this was written in it, a record: [a]

3 “In the first year of Cyrus the king, Cyrus the king gave an order about the house of God in Jerusalem: let the house be built, and the place where they sacrifice the sacrifices. And he fixed its elevation — ninety feet in height, and its width ninety feet — [b] 4 and three strong courses of stone and one course of timber; and the cost is to be paid out of the house of the king. 5 And as for the vessels of the house of God, the silver and the gold, which Nebuchadnezzar carried off from the house in Jerusalem and brought to Babylon — let them be given back and go to the temple in Jerusalem, to the place where they were set, in the house of God.”

6 “Now you are to give, you governors beyond the River — Shethar-bozenai and their fellow servants the Apharsachites who are beyond the River — keeping far away from that place. [c] 7 Leave the work of that house of God alone. Let the leaders of the Jews and the elders of the Jews build that house of God on its own place.

8 And an order has been given by me about anything you may do with the elders of the Jews for the building of that house of God: out of the king’s property, out of the tributes beyond the River, the cost is to be paid carefully to those men, so that the work is not stopped. [d] 9 And whatever is needed — young bulls and rams and lambs for whole burnt offerings to the God of heaven, wheat, salt, wine, oil — let it be given to them according to the word of the priests in Jerusalem, day by day, whatever they ask, 10 so that they may bring offerings of a pleasing smell to the God of heaven, and may pray for the life of the king and of his sons. †

11 And an order has been given by me: any man who alters this word — a beam will be pulled down out of his house, and he will be lifted up and fastened on it, and his house will be forfeited to me. [e] 12 And may the God whose name dwells there overthrow every king and people who stretches out his hand to alter or to do away with that house of God which is in Jerusalem. I, Darius, have given an order; let it be carried out carefully.”

13 Then Tattenai, governor beyond the River, and Shethar-bozenai and his fellow servants did carefully what Darius the king had sent. 14 And the elders of the Jews were building, and the Levites, through the prophecy of Haggai the prophet and of Zechariah son of Iddo; and they built it up and finished it, by the order of the God of Israel and by the order of Cyrus and Darius and Artaxerxes, kings of the Persians. [f] 15 And they finished this house by the third day of the month Adar, which is the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king. [g]

16 And the children of Israel — the priests and the Levites and the rest of the children of the exile — kept the dedication of the house of God with gladness. [h] 17 And for the dedication of the house of God they brought a hundred calves, two hundred rams, four hundred lambs, and twelve male goats as an offering for sin for all Israel, by the number of the tribes of Israel. 18 And they set the priests in their divisions and the Levites in their sections for the service of God in Jerusalem, according to what is written in the book of Moses.

19 And the children of the exile kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month. 20 For the priests and the Levites had been purified — all of them clean, to the last man — and they slaughtered the Passover for all the children of the exile, and for their brothers the priests, and for themselves. 21 And the children of Israel ate the Passover — those who had come out of the exile, and everyone who had separated himself from the uncleanness of the nations of the land and joined them — to seek the Lord, the God of Israel. 22 And they kept the feast of bread without yeast seven days with gladness, because the Lord had made them glad, and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria toward them, to strengthen their hands in the works of the house of the God of Israel. [i]