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Then we asked these elders, `At whose command are you building this house and laying the foundations of this structure?'
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And in order that we might inform you in writing who the leaders are, we questioned them and asked them for a list of the names of those who are at their head.
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They answered us, `We are the servants of the Lord who created the heaven and the earth.
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And the house was built many years ago by a king of Israel who was great and strong, and it was finished.
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But when our fathers sinned against the Lord of Israel who is in heaven, and provoked him, he gave them over into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, king of the Chaldeans;
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and they pulled down the house, and burned it, and carried the people away captive to Babylon.
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But in the first year that Cyrus reigned over the country of Babylonia, King Cyrus wrote that this house should be rebuilt.
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And the holy vessels of gold and of silver, which Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the house in Jerusalem and stored in his own temple, these Cyrus the king took out again from the temple in Babylon, and they were delivered to Zerubbabel and Sheshbazzar the governor
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with the command that he should take all these vessels back and put them in the temple at Jerusalem, and that this temple of the Lord should be rebuilt on its site.
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Then this Sheshbazzar, after coming here, laid the foundations of the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem, and although it has been in process of construction from that time until now, it has not yet reached completion.'
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Now therefore, if it seems wise, O king, let search be made in the royal archives of our lord the king that are in Babylon;