39. When they inspected the registry and didn’t find the lineage of these men, they excluded them from the service of the priesthood.
40. Nehemiah and Attharias told them not to share in the holy things until a high priest arrives wearing Clarity and Truth.
41. All those who were from Israel, 12 or more years old, excluding male and female servants, were 42,360; their male and female servants were 7,337; there were 245 harpists and singers.
42. There were 435 camels, 7,036 horses, 245 mules, and 5,525 donkeys.
43. Some of the leaders of the family houses, when they came to God’s temple in Jerusalem, solemnly pledged that they would erect the house on its site,
44. and that they would give to the sacred treasury for the work one thousand manehs of gold, five thousand manehs of silver, and one hundred priests’ robes.
45. The priests, the Levites, and some of the people took up residence in Jerusalem and the surrounding area. The temple singers, the gatekeepers, and the rest of Israel settled in the villages.
46. When the seventh month came and the Israelites were all in their own homes, they gathered together in the square near the first gate on the eastern side.
47. Then Jeshua, Jozadak’s son with his fellow priests, and Zerubbabel, Shealtiel’s son with his group, took their positions and prepared the altar of the God of Israel
48. to offer up entirely burned offerings, according to the stipulations in the scroll from Moses, the man of God.
49. Some from the other neighboring peoples gathered with them. They erected the altar in its proper place (even though all the other neighboring peoples were hostile to them and were stronger than they were). They offered sacrifices and entirely burned offerings to the Lord at the proper morning and evening times.
50. They celebrated the Festival of Booths, as it is commanded in the Law, and offered sacrifices daily as expected,
51. in addition to the continual offerings and sacrifices on sabbaths, at new moons, and at all the sacred feasts.
52. All who made a solemn promise to God began to offer sacrifices to God, from the new moon of the seventh month, even though God’s temple wasn’t yet rebuilt.
53. They gave money to the stonemasons and the carpenters, along with daily meals. They gave gifts to the Sidonians and the Tyrians, to deliver cedar logs from Lebanon and ferry them in rafts to the harbor of Joppa, according to the written orders they had from Persia’s King Cyrus.
54. In the second month of the second year, after they came to God’s temple in Jerusalem, Zerubbabel, Shealtiel’s son, and Jeshua, Jozadak’s son, made a new start, together with their associates and the levitical priests and all who had returned to Jerusalem from captivity.