Ezra 3

¹ When the seventh month came and the Israelites had settled in their towns, the people gathered as one in Jerusalem.

² Then Jeshua son of Jozadak and his fellow priests, together with Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and his associates, began to build the altar of the God of Israel to offer burnt offerings on it, as it is written in the law of Moses the man of God.

³ They set up the altar on its foundation, despite their fear of the surrounding peoples, and they offered burnt offerings on it to the LORD—burnt offerings morning and evening.

⁴ They celebrated the Festival of Shelters as prescribed, and offered the daily burnt offerings in the number required for each day,

⁵ and after that, the regular burnt offerings, the New Moon offerings, and the offerings for all the appointed sacred festivals of the LORD, as well as those brought as freewill offerings to the LORD.

⁶ From the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the LORD, though the foundation of the LORD's temple had not yet been laid.

⁷ They gave money to the stonecutters and carpenters, and food, drink, and oil to the people of Sidon and Tyre to bring cedar logs by sea from Lebanon to Joppa, as authorized by Cyrus king of Persia.

⁸ In the second month of the second year after their arrival at the house of God in Jerusalem, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, Jeshua son of Jozadak, and the rest of their associates—the priests, the Levites, and all who had returned from the captivity to Jerusalem—began the work. They appointed Levites twenty years old and older to supervise the work on the house of the LORD.

⁹ Jeshua and his sons and brothers, and Kadmiel and his sons—descendants of Hodaviah—together took charge of supervising those doing the work on the house of God, along with the sons of Henadad and their sons and brothers, all Levites.

¹⁰ When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the LORD, the priests in their vestments took their positions with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise the LORD according to the directions of David king of Israel.

¹¹ They sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the LORD: "For he is good; his loyal love toward Israel endures forever." And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid.

¹² But many of the older priests, Levites, and heads of families who had seen the first house wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house, while many others shouted for joy.

¹³ No one could distinguish the sound of the joyful shouting from the sound of the weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away.