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Therefore, to the intent that we might give knowledge unto thee by writing, we demanded of those who were the chief doers and we required of them the names in writing of their principal men.
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So they gave us this answer: `We are the servants of the Lord who made heaven and earth.
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And as for this house, it was built many years ago by a king of Israel great and strong, and was finished.
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But when our fathers provoked God unto wrath, and sinned against the Lord of Israel who is in heaven, He gave them over into the power of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, of the Chaldeans,Œ
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who pulled down the house and burned it, and carried away the people captive unto Babylon.
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But in the first year that King Cyrus reigned over the country of Babylon, Cyrus the king wrote to build up this house.
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And the holy vessels of gold and of silver that Nebuchadnezzar had carried away out of the house at Jerusalem and had set them in his own temple, those Cyrus the king brought forth again out of the temple at Babylon, and they were delivered to Zerubbabel and to Sheshbazzar the ruler,
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with commandment that he should carry away the same vessels and put them in the temple at Jerusalem, and that the temple of the Lord should be built in his place.
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Then the same Sheshbazzar, having come hither, laid the foundations of the house of the Lord at Jerusalem; and from that time to this, being still in building, it has not yet fully ended.'
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Now therefore, if it seem good unto the king, let search be made among the records of King Cyrus;
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and if it be found that the building of the house of the Lord at Jerusalem hath been done with the consent of King Cyrus, and if our lord the king be so minded, let him signify unto us thereof."