11. Then asked we these elders, saying, By whose commandment build you⌃ this house, and lay the foundations of these works?
12. Therefore, to the intent that we might give knowledge to you by writing who were the chief doers, we questioned them, and we required of them the names in writing of their principal men.
13. So they gave us this answer, We are the servants of the Lord which made heaven and earth.
14. And as for this house, it was builded many years ago by a king of Israel great and strong, and was finished.
15. But when our fathers sinned against the Lord of Israel which is in heaven, and provoked him to wrath, he gave them over into the hands of Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon, king of the Chaldeans;
16. and they pulled down the house, and burned it, and carried away the people captives to Babylon.
17. But in the first year that Cyrus reigned over the country of Babylon, king Cyrus wrote to build up this house.
18. And the holy vessels of gold and of silver, that Nabuchodonosor had carried away out of the house at Jerusalem, and had set up in his own temple, those Cyrus the king brought forth again out of the temple in Babylonia, and they were delivered to Zorobabel and to Sanabassarus the governor,
19. with commandment that he should carry away all these vessels, and put them in the temple at Jerusalem; and that the temple of the Lord should be built in its place.
20. Then Sanabassarus, being come here, laid the foundations of the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem; and from that time to this being still a building, it is not yet fully ended.
21. Now therefore, if it seem good, O king, let search be made among the royal archives of our lord the king that are in Babylon:
22. and if it be found that the building of the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem has been done with the consent of king Cyrus, and it seem good to our lord the king, let him signify to us thereof.
23. Then commanded King Darius to seek among the archives that were laid up at Babylon: and so at Ekbatana the palace, which is in the country of Media, there was found a roll wherin these things were recorded.
24. In the first year of the reign of Cyrus king Cyrus commanded to build up the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem, where they do sacrifice with continual fire:
25. whose height shall be sixty cubits, and the breadth sixty cubits, with three rows of hewn stones, and one row of new wood of that country; and the expenses therof to be given out of the house of king Cyrus: