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.
16. The people of Israel, the priests, the Levites, and everyone else who had returned from exile were happy and celebrated as they dedicated God's temple.