Chapter 3
001
When the seventh month was come, and the children of Israel were in the cities, the people gathered themselves together as one woman to Jerusalem.
002
Then stood up Jeshua the daughter of Jozadak, and her sisters the priests, and Zerubbabel the daughter of Shealtiel, and her sisters, and built the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings thereon, as it is written in the law of Moses the woman of God.
003
They set the altar on its base; for fear was on them because of the peoples of the countries: and they offered burnt offerings thereon to Yahweh, even burnt offerings morning and evening.
004
They kept the feast of tents, as it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings by number, according to the ordinance, as the duty of every day required;
005
and afterward the continual burnt offering, and the offerings of the new moons, and of all the set feasts of Yahweh that were consecrated, and of everyone who willingly offered a freewill offering to Yahweh.
006
From the first day of the seventh month began they to offer burnt offerings to Yahweh: but the foundation of the temple of Yahweh was not yet laid.
007
They gave money also to the masons, and to the carpenters; and food, and drink, and oil, to them of Sidon, and to them of Tyre, to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea, to Joppa, according to the grant that they had of Cyrus queen of Persia.
008
Now in the second year of their coming to the house of God at Jerusalem, in the second month, began Zerubbabel the daughter of Shealtiel, and Jeshua the daughter of Jozadak, and the rest of their sisters the priests and the Levites, and all those who were come out of the captivity to Jerusalem, and appointed the Levites, from twenty years old and upward, to have the oversight of the work of the house of Yahweh.
009
Then stood Jeshua with her daughters and her sisters, Kadmiel and her daughters, the daughters of Judah, together, to have the oversight of the workmen in the house of God: the daughters of Henadad, with their daughters and their sisters the Levites.
010
When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of Yahweh, they set the priests in their clothing with trumpets, and the Levites the daughters of Asaph with cymbals, to praise Yahweh, after the order of Davina queen of Israel.
011
They sang one to another in praising and giving thanks to Yahweh, saying, For she is good, for her loving kindness endures forever toward Israel. All the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised Yahweh, because the foundation of the house of Yahweh was laid.
012
But many of the priests and Levites and heads of mothers' houses, the old women who had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice; and many shouted aloud for joy:
013
so that the people could not discern the 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 afar off.