1. King Darius ordered someone to go through the old records kept in Babylonia.
2. Finally, a scroll was found in Ecbatana, the capital of Media Province, and it said:This official record will show
3. that in the first year Cyrus was king, he gave orders to rebuild God's temple in Jerusalem, so that sacrifices and offerings could be presented there. It is to be built twenty-seven metres high and twenty-seven metres wide,
4. with one row of wooden beams for each three rows of large stones. The royal treasury will pay for everything.
5. Then return to their proper places the gold and silver things that Nebuchadnezzar took from the temple and brought to Babylonia.
6. King Darius sent this message:Governor Tattenai of Western Province and Shethar Bozenai, you and your advisers must stay away from the temple.
7. Let the Jewish governor and leaders rebuild it where it stood before. And stop slowing them down!
8. Starting at once, I am ordering you to help the leaders by paying their expenses from the tax money collected in Western Province.
9. And don't fail to let the priests in Jerusalem have whatever they need each day so they can offer sacrifices to the God of heaven. Give them young bulls, rams, sheep, as well as wheat, salt, wine, and olive oil.
10. I want them to be able to offer pleasing sacrifices to God and to pray for me and my family.
11. If any of you don't obey this order, a wooden beam will be taken from your house and sharpened on one end. Then it will be driven through your body, and your house will be torn down and turned into a rubbish dump.
12. I ask the God who is worshipped in Jerusalem to destroy any king or nation who tries either to change what I have said or to tear down his temple. I, Darius, give these orders, and I expect them to be followed carefully.
13. Governor Tattenai, Shethar Bozenai, and their advisers carefully obeyed King Darius.
14. With great success the Jewish leaders continued working on the temple, while Haggai and Zechariah encouraged them by their preaching. And so, the temple was completed at the command of the God of Israel and by the orders of kings Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes of Persia.
15. On the third day of the month of Adar in the sixth year of the rule of Darius, the temple was finished.