Darius responds

¹Then King Darius made a decree, and they searched the archives where the documents were stored in Babylon.

²But a scroll was found in Ecbatana, the capital of the province of Media, on which was written the following:

God’s house is completed and dedicated

¹³Then Tattenai, the governor of the province Beyond the River, Shethar-bozenai, and their colleagues carried out the order of King Darius with all diligence.

¹⁴So the elders of the Jews built and prospered because of the prophesying of the prophet Haggai and Zechariah, Iddo’s son. They finished building by the command of Israel’s God and of Cyrus, Darius, and King Artaxerxes of Persia.

¹⁵This house was completed on the third day of the month of Adar, in the sixth year of the rule of King Darius.[#6.15 February–March]

¹⁶Then the Israelites, the priests and the Levites, and the rest of the returned exiles joyfully celebrated the dedication of this house of God.

¹⁷At the dedication of this house of God, they offered one hundred bulls, two hundred rams, four hundred lambs, and as a purification offering for all Israel, twelve male goats, according to the number of the tribes of Israel.

¹⁸They set the priests in their divisions and the Levites in their sections for the service of God in Jerusalem, as it is written in the scroll from Moses.

¹⁹On the fourteenth day of the first month, the returned exiles celebrated the Passover.[#6.19 Heb resumes with this verse.; #6.19 March–April, Nisan]

²⁰All of the priests and the Levites had purified themselves; all of them were clean. They slaughtered the Passover animals for all the returned exiles, their fellow priests, and themselves.

²¹The Israelites who had returned from exile, together with all those who had joined them by separating themselves from the pollutions of the nations of the land to worship the LORD , the God of Israel, ate the Passover meal.[#6.21 Heb lacks]

²²They also joyfully celebrated the Festival of Unleavened Bread for seven days, because the LORD had made them joyful by changing the attitude of the king of Assyria toward them so that he assisted them in the work on the house of God, the God of Israel.