The chat will start when you send the first message.
1So Darius the emperor issued orders for a search to be made in the royal records that were kept in Babylon.
2But it was in the city of Ecbatana in the province of Media that a scroll was found, containing the following record:
6Then Darius sent the following reply:
13Then Tattenai the governor, Shethar Bozenai, and their fellow-officials did exactly as the emperor had commanded.
14The Jewish leaders made good progress with the building of the Temple, encouraged by the prophets Haggai and Zechariah. They completed the Temple as they had been commanded by the God of Israel and by Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes, emperors of Persia.[#Hag 1.1; Zech 1.1]
15They finished the Temple on the third day of the month Adar in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the emperor.
16Then the people of Israel — the priests, the Levites, and all the others who had returned from exile — joyfully dedicated the Temple.
17For the dedication they offered 100 bulls, 200 sheep, and 400 lambs as sacrifices, and twelve goats as offerings for sin, one for each tribe of Israel.
18They also organized the priests and the Levites for the temple services in Jerusalem, according to the instructions contained in the book of Moses.
19The people who had returned from exile celebrated Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month of the following year.[#Ex 12.1–20]
20All the priests and the Levites had purified themselves and were ritually clean. The Levites killed the animals for the Passover sacrifices for all the people who had returned, for the priests, and for themselves.
21The sacrifices were eaten by all the Israelites who had returned from exile and by all those who had given up the pagan ways of the other people who were living in the land and who had come to worship the LORD God of Israel.
22For seven days they joyfully celebrated the Festival of Unleavened Bread. They were full of joy because the LORD had made the emperor of Assyria favourable to them, so that he supported them in their work of rebuilding the Temple of the God of Israel.[#6.22 : Apparently a reference to the Persian emperor who then also ruled the territory once occupied by Assyria, Israel's ancient enemy.]