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They rebuilt the altar in Jerusalem
1 After the Israeli people returned to Israel, and had begun to live in their towns, ◄in the autumn of/after the hot season ended in► that year, they all gathered together in Jerusalem. 2 Then Jeshua, the son of Jehozadak, and his fellow priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and his friends, all began to rebuild the altar of God, the one whom the Israeli people worshiped. They did that in order that they could sacrifice burned offerings on it, according to what the prophet Moses had written in the laws that God gave to him. 3-6 Even though they were afraid of the people who were already living in that area, they rebuilt the altar at the same place where the previous altar had been. Before they started to lay the foundation of Yahweh’s temple, the priests started to burn sacrifices to Yahweh on the altar. They offered sacrifices every morning and every evening. Fifteen days after they started to offer these sacrifices, the people celebrated the Festival of Living in Temporary Shelters, as Moses had commanded them to do in the laws that God gave to him. Each day the priests offered the sacrifices that were required for that day. In addition, they presented the regular burned offerings and the offerings that were required for the New Moon Festivals and the other festivals that they celebrated each year to honor Yahweh. They also brought other offerings only because they desired to bring them, not because they were required to bring them.
They rebuilt the temple
7 Then the Israelis hired masons and carpenters, and they bought logs from cedar trees from the people of Tyre and Sidon cities, and they gave those people food and wine and olive oil for the logs. They brought the logs down from the mountains in Lebanon to the Mediterranean seacoast and then floated them along the coast of the Sea, to Joppa. King Cyrus permitted them to do that. Then the logs were brought from Joppa inland up to Jerusalem.
8 The Israelis started to rebuild the temple in the ◄spring/time before the hot season► of the second year after they returned to Jerusalem. Zerubbabel and Jeshua and all the people who had returned to Jerusalem worked on the building. All the ◄Levites/men who did work in the temple► supervised this work. 9 Jeshua and his sons and his other relatives, and Kadmiel and his sons, who were descendants of Hodaviah, also helped to supervise the work. The family of Henadad, who were also all Levites, joined with them in supervising this work.
10 When the builders finished laying the foundation of the temple, the priests put on their robes and stood in their places, blowing their trumpets. Then the Levites, who were descendants of Asaph, clashed/banged their cymbals to praise Yahweh, just as King David had many years previously told Asaph and the other musicians to do. 11 They praised Yahweh and thanked him, and they sang this song about him:
“He is very good to us!
He faithfully loves us Israeli people, and he will love us forever.”
Then all the people shouted loudly, praising Yahweh because they had finished laying the foundation of Yahweh’s temple. 12 Many of the old priests, Levites, and leaders of families remembered what the first temple was like, and they cried aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid because they knew that the new temple would not be as beautiful as the first temple. But the other people shouted joyfully. 13 The shouting and the crying was very loud; even people far away could hear it.