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Let the governor of the Jews and their leaders build the house of God on its former site.

This is the command I give regarding how you should assist those Jewish leaders in rebuilding the house of God: pay the expenses in full and without delay, using the income from the taxes of the province on the other side of the River, which is allocated to the king. 

And may the God who makes his Name dwell there crush every rebel, king, or people who go against this decree or seek to destroy the house of God in Jerusalem. 

 

I, Darius, give this command. Let it be carried out at once.”

And the leaders of the Jews continued to make progress in building, encouraged by what Haggai, the prophet, and Zechariah, the son of Iddo, had said; and they finished the work according to the command of the God of Israel and the decrees of Cyrus and Darius. 

The house was finished on the third day of the month of Adar in the sixth year of the reign of Darius. 

The children of Israel, the priests and the Levites, and the rest of those who had returned from exile celebrated the consecration of this house of God with rejoicing, 

offering on this solemnity one hundred young bulls, two hundred rams and four hundred lambs, and twelve he-goats as a sin offering for all Israel, according to the number of the tribes of Israel. 

Then they installed the priests according to their ranks, and the Levites according to their classes, for the service of the house of God in Jerusalem, as it is written in the Book of Moses.

Those who had returned from exile celebrated the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month, 

for the priests and the Levites had purified themselves together, and all of them were clean. So, they slaughtered the Passover lamb for all who had returned from exile, for their fellow priests, and themselves.