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issued a decree, and a search was conducted in the archives that were stored in the treasury at Babylon. 2 But a scroll was found in the fortress at Ecbatana in the province of Media with this record written on it:
3 In the first year of King Cyrus, the king issued a decree concerning the house of God in Jerusalem:
Let the temple be rebuilt as the place where sacrifices are offered, and let its foundations be relaid. Its height is to be sixty cubits and its width sixty cubits, 4 with three courses of large stones and one layer of timber. The costs are to be paid from the royal treasury. 5 Also, the gold and silver articles of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took from the temple in Jerusalem and brought to Babylon, are to be returned to the temple in Jerusalem. Each of them is to be restored to its place when they are deposited in the house of God.
6 Now then, Tattenai, governor of the region west of the Euphrates River, Shethar-bozenai, and your colleagues, the officials of that province west of the Euphrates River, keep stay away from that place. 7 Do not interfere in the work on the house of God. Let the governor of the Jews and the Jewish elders rebuild this temple of God on its site.
8 Moreover, I hereby issue a decree concerning what you must do for these Jewish elders as they rebuild this house of God:
The cost is to be fully paid to these men out of the royal revenue from the taxes of the provinces west of the Euphrates River, so that the work will not stop. 9 Whatever is needed—young bulls, rams, and lambs for the burnt offerings to the God of heaven, and wheat, salt, wine, and oil, as requested by the priests in Jerusalem—let it be given to them day by day without fail, 10 so that they may offer sacrifices of pleasing aroma to the God of heaven and pray for the life of the king and his sons.
11 Furthermore, I also decree that if anyone alters this edict, a beam is to be pulled from his house and raised up, and he shall be impaled on it, and his house shall be made a dunghill for this. 12 May God, who has caused His Name to dwell there, overthrow any king or people who dares forth their hand to alter this decree, or to destroy this house of God in Jerusalem.
I, Darius, have issued this decree. Let it be carried out with all diligence.
13 Then Tattenai, governor of the region west of the Euphrates River, Shethar-bozenai, and their colleagues diligently carried out the decree that King Darius had issued. 14 So the elders of the Jews continued to build, and they prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah son of Iddo. They finished the building according to the command of the God of Israel and the decrees of Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia. 15 The temple was completed on the third day of the month of Adar, in the sixth year of the reign of King Darius.
16 Then the people of Israel, the priests, the Levites, and the rest of the exiles, celebrated the dedication of this house of God with joy. 17 They offered at the dedication of this house of God a hundred bulls, four hundred lambs, and as a sin offering for all Israel, twelve male goats—one for each of the tribes of Israel. 18 They also appointed the priests by their divisions and the Levites by their groups for the service of God at Jerusalem, according to what is written in the Book of Moses.
19 The returned exiles celebrated the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month. 20 The priests and the Levites had purified themselves; so all of them were ceremonially clean. They slaughtered the Passover lamb for all the exiles, for their brothers the priests, and for themselves. 21 So the Israelites who had returned from the exile ate it, together with all who had separated themselves from the unclean practices of the Gentiles of the land in order to seek the Lord, the God of Israel. 22 They celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days with joy; for the Lord had made them joyful, and He had turned the heart of the king of Assyria toward them, to strengthen their hands in the work on the house of God, the God of Israel.