THE BOOK OF EZRA

 

Ezra Chapter 3

1 ¶ When the seventh month came, and the children of Israel were in the towns, the people gathered together as one man to Jerusalem.

2 Then Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and his brethren the priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and his brethren, built an altar for the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings on, as it is written in the law of Moses the man of God.

3 So they rebuilt the altar on its base; even though they feared the people of the lands round about: and on it they offered burnt offerings to the LORD, burnt offerings in the morning and evening.

4 They also kept the feast of tabernacles, as it is written, and each day offered burnt offerings by number, according to the custom, as each day’s duty required;

5 And after that the regular burnt offerings, the offering at the new moon, and at all the appointed feasts of the LORD that were consecrated, and of every one who willingly offered a freewill offering to the LORD.

6 From the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the LORD. But the foundation of the temple of the LORD was not yet laid.

7 They also gave money to the stonecutters, and to the carpenters; and food, drink, and olive oil, to the men of Zidon, and Tyre, to bring cedar wood from Lebanon by sea to Joppa, according to the grant that they had from Cyrus the king of Persia.

8 ¶ Now in the second month of the second year after they arrived at God’s temple in Jerusalem, Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua the son of Jozadak, with the rest of their brethren the priests and the Levites, and all who had come to Jerusalem out of captivity; began the work by appointing those Levites, from twenty years old and older, to direct the work on the house of the LORD.

9 Then Jeshua with his sons and his brethren, Kadmiel and his sons, the sons of Judah, together, took the oversight of the workmen in the house of God: the sons of Henadad, with their sons and their kinsmen the Levites.

10 And when the builders laid the foundation for the temple of the LORD, the priests in their garments took their places with trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise the LORD, after the ordinance of David king of Israel.

11 And they sang together responsively praising and giving thanks to the LORD; saying for he is good, for his mercy endures forever toward Israel. And all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid.

12 But many of the priests and Levites and leaders of the clans, who were old enough to have seen the first temple, broke into loud crying when they saw the foundation of this house being laid; but many others shouted aloud for joy:

13 So that the people could not distinguish between the happy shouting and the sound of those who wept: for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the sound was heard a long way off.