11. In order that we might inform you, we questioned them about who the leaders are and demanded a list of the names of the troublemakers.
12. They told us, "We are the servants of the Lord who created the heaven and the earth.
13. The house was built many years before by a great and mighty king of Israel, and it was finished.
14. But when our ancestors angrily sinned against the Lord of Israel who is in heaven, God gave them over into the hands of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, king of the Chaldeans;
15. and they tore down the house and burned it, and led the people away as prisoners to Babylon.
16. But in the first year of Cyrus’ rule over the country of Babylonia, King Cyrus wrote that this house should be rebuilt.
17. King Cyrus took out the holy gold and silver equipment from the temple in Babylon, which Nebuchadnezzar had removed from the house in Jerusalem and deposited in his own temple. Cyrus handed it over to Zerubbabel and the governor Sheshbazzar