¹When the seventh month had come , and the children of Israel were in the cities , the people gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem .

²Then Jeshua the son of Jozadak stood up with his brothers the priests and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and his relatives , and built 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.

³In spite of their fear because of the peoples of the surrounding lands, they set the altar on its base ; and they offered burnt offerings on it to the LORD , even burnt offerings morning and evening .

⁴They kept the feast of booths , as it is written , and offered the daily burnt offerings by number , according to the ordinance , as the duty of every day required ;

⁵and afterward the continual burnt offering , the offerings of the new moons , of all the set feasts of the LORD that were consecrated , and of everyone who willingly offered a free will offering to the LORD .

⁶From the first day of the seventh month , they began to offer burnt offerings to the LORD ; but the foundation of the LORD ’s temple was not yet laid .

⁷They also gave money to the masons and to the carpenters . They also gave food , drink , and oil to the people of Sidon and Tyre to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea , to Joppa , according to the grant that they had from Cyrus King of Persia .

⁸Now in the second year of their coming to God ’s house at Jerusalem , in the second month , Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel , Jeshua the son of Jozadak , and the rest of their brothers the priests and the Levites , and all those who had come out of the captivity to Jerusalem , began the work and appointed the Levites , from twenty years old and upward , to have the oversight of the work of the LORD ’s house .

⁹Then Jeshua stood with his sons and his brothers , Kadmiel and his sons , the sons of Judah , together to have the oversight of the workmen in God’s house : the sons of Henadad , with their sons and their brothers the Levites .

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

¹¹They sang to one another in praising and giving thanks to the LORD , “For he is good , for his loving kindness endures forever towards Israel .” All the people shouted with a great shout , when they praised the LORD , because the foundation of the LORD ’s house had been laid .

¹²But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ households , the old men who had seen the first house , when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes , wept with a loud voice . Many also shouted aloud for joy ,

¹³so that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people ; for the people shouted with a loud shout , and the noise was heard far away .