10. This is to be done so that they can offer sacrifices that are acceptable to the God of Heaven and pray for his blessing on me and my sons.
11. I further command that if anyone disobeys this order, a wooden beam is to be torn out of his house, sharpened at one end, and then driven through his body. And his house is to be made a rubbish heap.
12. May the God who chose Jerusalem as the place where he is to be worshipped overthrow any king or nation that defies this command and tries to destroy the Temple there. I, Darius, have given this order. It is to be fully obeyed.”
13. Then Tattenai the governor, Shethar Bozenai, and their fellow-officials did exactly as the emperor had commanded.
14. The Jewish leaders made good progress with the building of the Temple, encouraged by the prophets Haggai and Zechariah. They completed the Temple as they had been commanded by the God of Israel and by Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes, emperors of Persia.
15. They finished the Temple on the third day of the month Adar in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the emperor.
16. Then the people of Israel — the priests, the Levites, and all the others who had returned from exile — joyfully dedicated the Temple.
17. For the dedication they offered 100 bulls, 200 sheep, and 400 lambs as sacrifices, and twelve goats as offerings for sin, one for each tribe of Israel.
18. They also organized the priests and the Levites for the temple services in Jerusalem, according to the instructions contained in the book of Moses.
19. The people who had returned from exile celebrated Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month of the following year.
20. All the priests and the Levites had purified themselves and were ritually clean. The Levites killed the animals for the Passover sacrifices for all the people who had returned, for the priests, and for themselves.
21. The sacrifices were eaten by all the Israelites who had returned from exile and by all those who had given up the pagan ways of the other people who were living in the land and who had come to worship the Lord God of Israel.