10. so that they may be offering incense to the God of heaven and may be praying for the good fortune of the king and his family.
11. “I hereby give orders that if anyone changes this directive a beam is to be pulled out from his house and he is to be raised up and impaled on it, and his house is to be reduced to a rubbish heap for this indiscretion.
12. May God who makes his name to reside there overthrow any king or nation who reaches out to cause such change so as to destroy this temple of God in Jerusalem. I, Darius, have given orders. Let them be carried out with precision!”
13. Then Tattenai governor of Trans-Euphrates, Shethar-Bozenai, and their colleagues acted accordingly – with precision, just as Darius the king had given instructions.
14. The elders of the Jews continued building and prospering, while at the same time Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo continued prophesying. They built and brought it to completion by the command of the God of Israel and by the command of Cyrus and Darius and Artaxerxes king of Persia.
15. They finished this temple on the third day of the month Adar, which is the sixth year of the reign of King Darius.
16. The people of Israel – the priests, the Levites, and the rest of the exiles – observed the dedication of this temple of God with joy.