Ezra 3:6-8

Easy-to-Read Version

⁶ So on the first day of the seventh month, these Israelites again began offering sacrifices to the Lord. This was done, even though the Lord’s Temple had not been rebuilt.

Rebuilding the Temple

⁷ Then those who had come back from captivity gave money to the stonecutters and carpenters. They also gave food, wine, and olive oil. They used these things to pay the people of Tyre and Sidon to bring cedar logs from Lebanon. They wanted to bring the logs in ships to the seacoast town of Joppa as they did for the first Temple. King Cyrus of Persia gave permission for them to do this.

⁸ So in the second month^[a] of the second year after they came to the Temple in Jerusalem, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and Jeshua son of Jozadak began the work. Their brothers, the priests, Levites, and everyone who came back to Jerusalem from captivity began working with them. They chose Levites who were 20 years old and older to be the leaders in the building of the Lord’s Temple.