9. We asked their elders, “Who gave you permission to rebuild this Temple and these walls?”
10. We also asked for their names, and we wrote down the names of their leaders so you would know who they are.
11. This is the answer they gave to us: “We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth. We are rebuilding the Temple that a great king of Israel built and finished many years ago.
12. But our ancestors made the God of heaven angry, so he handed them over to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, who destroyed this Temple and took the people to Babylon as captives.
13. “Later, in the first year Cyrus was king of Babylon, he gave a special order for this Temple to be rebuilt.
14. Cyrus brought out from the temple in Babylon the gold and silver bowls and pans that came from the Temple of God. Nebuchadnezzar had taken them from the Temple in Jerusalem and had put them in the temple in Babylon.“Then King Cyrus gave them to Sheshbazzar, his appointed governor.