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Building an house unto the Lord, great and new, of hewn and costly stones, and the timber already laid upon the walls.
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And those works are done with great speed, and the work goeth on prosperously in their hands, and with all glory and diligence is it made.
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Then asked we these elders, saying, By whose commandment build ye this house, and lay the foundations of these works?
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Therefore to the intent that we might give knowledge unto thee by writing, we demanded of them 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 which made heaven and earth.
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And as for this house, it was builded 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 which is in heaven, he gave them over into the power of Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon, of the Chaldees;
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Who pulled down the house, and burned it, and carried away the people captives 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 Nabuchodonosor 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 Zorobabel and to Sanabassarus 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.