The In-Dept Study of the Bible
Ezra 03
1 When the seventh month had come,
and the childrenofIsrael were inthe cities,
the people gathered themselves together
as one man to Jerusalem.
2 Then Jeshua the son of Jozadak stood
up with his brothers the priests and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and his relatives,
and built the altar of the God of Israel, to
offer burnt offerings on it, as it is written
in the law of Moses the man of God.
3 In spite of their fear because of the peoples of the surrounding lands, they set the
altar on its base; and they offered burnt
offerings on itto Yahweh, even burnt offerings morning and evening.
4 They kept the feast of booths, as it is
written, and offered the daily burnt offerings by number, according to the
ordinance, as the duty of every day required;
5 and afterward the continual burnt offering, the offerings of the new moons, of
all the set feasts of Yahweh that were consecrated, and of everyone who willingly
offered a free will offering to Yahweh.
6 From the first day of the seventh
month, they began to offer burnt offerings
to Yahweh; butthe foundation of Yahweh’s
temple was not yet laid.
7 They also gave money to the masons
and to the carpenters. They also gave food,
drink, and oil to the people of Sidon and
Tyre to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to
the sea, to Joppa, according to the grant
that they had from Cyrus King of Persia.
8 Now in the second year of their coming
to God’s house at Jerusalem, in the second
month, Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel,
Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and the rest of
their brothers the priests and the Levites,
and all those who had come out of the
captivity to Jerusalem, began the work and
appointed the Levites, from twenty years
old and upward, to have the oversight of
the work of Yahweh’s house.
9Then Jeshua stood with his sons and his
brothers, Kadmiel and his sons, the sons
of Judah, together to have the oversight of
the workmen in God’s house: the sons of
Henadad, with their sons and their brothers the Levites.
10 When the builders laid the foundation
of Yahweh’s temple, they set the priests in
their vestments with trumpets, with the
Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to
praise Yahweh, according to the directions
of David king of Israel.
11 They sang to one another in praising and giving thanks to Yahweh, “For he is
good, for his loving kindness endures forever toward Israel.” Allthe people shouted
with a great shout, when they praised Yahweh, because the foundation of Yahweh’s
house had been laid.
12 But many of the priests and Levites
and heads of fathers’ households, the old
men who had seen the first house, when
the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice.
Many also shouted aloud for joy,
13 so thatthepeople couldnotdiscernthe
noise of the shout of joy from the noise of
the weeping of the people; for the people
shouted with a loud shout, and the noise
was heard far away.