Ezra 6:13–22

¹³Then Tattenai governor of the region west of the Euphrates River, Shethar-bozenai, and their colleagues^e diligently carried out what King Darius had decreed. ¹⁴So the Jewish elders continued successfully with the building under the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah son of Iddo.^f They finished the building according to the command of the God of Israel and the decrees of Cyrus,^g Darius, and King Artaxerxes^h of Persia. ¹⁵This house was completed on the third day of the month of Adarⁱ in the sixth year of the reign of King Darius.

TEMPLE DEDICATION AND THE PASSOVER

¹⁶Then the Israelites, including the priests, the Levites, and the rest of the exiles, celebrated the dedication of the house of God with joy. ¹⁷For the dedication of God’s house they offered one hundred bulls, two hundred rams, and four hundred lambs, as well as twelve male goats^j as a sin offering for all Israel—one for each Israelite tribe. ¹⁸They also appointed the priests by their divisions and the Levites by their groups to the service of God in Jerusalem, according to what is written in the book of Moses.^k

¹⁹The exiles^l observed the Passover^m on the fourteenth day of the first month. ²⁰All of the priests and Levites were ceremonially clean, because they had purified themselves. They killed the Passover lamb for themselves, their priestly brothers, and all the exiles.^{n 21}The Israelites who had returned from exile^o ate it, together with all who had separated themselves from the uncleanness of the Gentiles of the land^Bp in order to worship the Lord, the God of Israel. ²²They observed the Festival of Unleavened Bread for seven days^q with joy, because the Lord had made them joyful, having changed the Assyrian king’s attitude toward them, so that he supported them^A in the work on the house of the God of Israel.^r