52
They also offered the normal daily sacrifices, as well as those required for the Sabbath, the New Moon Festival, and the other regular assemblies for worship.
53
Although the people had not yet rebuilt God's Temple, everyone who had made a vow to God began to offer sacrifices on the first day of the seventh month.
54
The people gave money to pay the stonemasons and the carpenters; they gave food, drink,
55
and carts to be sent to the cities of Tyre and Sidon in exchange for cedar logs from Lebanon, which were to be floated to the harbor at Joppa. All of this was done according to the orders given by Emperor Cyrus of Persia.
56
So in the second month of the year after they came back to the site of the Temple in Jerusalem, they started the work and began laying the foundation. Zerubbabel, Joshua, and the rest of the Jewish people, the priests, and the Levites - in fact, all the exiles who had come back to Jerusalem, joined in the work.
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.