10. so that they may offer acceptable sacrifices to the God of heaven, as well as pray for the life of the king and of his sons.
11. “Also, I have issued a decree that whoever shall violate this word, the timber will be pulled down from his house and arranged so that he may be hanged on it. Thus shall his house be made a dunghill for this.
12. May the God who has caused His name to dwell there overthrow all kings and people who stretch forth their hand to violate or destroy this house of God in Jerusalem.“I, Darius, have issued the decree; so let it be done diligently.”
13. In compliance, Tattenai, governor of the province Beyond the River, Shethar-Bozenai, and their companions speedily accomplished what Darius the king had decreed.
14. The rebuilding by the elders of the Jews prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo. And they built, and finished it, according to the decree of the God of Israel and according to the decrees of Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia.
15. This temple was finished on the third day of the month Adar during the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king.
16. The children of Israel, the priests and the Levites, and the rest of the descendants of the captivity kept the dedication of this house of God with joy.
17. At the dedication of this house of God, they offered a hundred bulls, two hundred rams, four hundred lambs; and as a sin offering for all Israel, they offered twelve goats (according to the number of the tribes of Israel).
18. They appointed the priests in their divisions and the Levites in their orders for the service of God in Jerusalem, as it had been written in the Book of Moses.
19. The children of the captivity kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month.
20. Because the priests and the Levites had purified themselves together, all of them were pure. So, they slaughtered the Passover lambs for all the descendants of the captivity, both for their brothers the priests and for themselves.
21. Then they ate together, both the children of Israel who had come out of captivity and all those who had separated themselves from the uncleanness of the nations of the land, in order to seek the Lord God of Israel.
22. With joy they observed the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days because the Lord had made them joyful. He had turned the heart of the king of Assyria toward them and strengthened their hands in the work on the house of God, who is the God of Israel.