Ezra 6:13–22

The Temple Is Dedicated

¹³Then Tattenai the governor, Shethar Bozenai, and their fellow-officials did exactly as the emperor had commanded. ^14*The Jewish leaders made good progress with the building of the Temple, encouraged by the prophets Haggai and Zechariah. They completed the Temple as they had been commanded by the God of Israel and by Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes, emperors of Persia. ¹⁵They finished the Temple on the third day of the month Adar in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the emperor. ¹⁶Then the people of Israel—the priests, the Levites, and all the others who had returned from exile—joyfully dedicated the Temple. ¹⁷For the dedication they offered a hundred bulls, 200 sheep, and 400 lambs as sacrifices, and twelve goats as offerings for sin, one for each tribe of Israel. ¹⁸They also organized the priests and the Levites for the temple services in Jerusalem, according to the instructions contained in the book of Moses.

The Passover

^19*The people who had returned from exile celebrated Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month of the following year. ²⁰All the priests and the Levites had purified themselves and were ritually clean. The Levites killed the animals for the Passover sacrifices for all the people who had returned, for the priests, and for themselves. ²¹The sacrifices were eaten by all the Israelites who had returned from exile and by all those who had given up the pagan ways of the other people who were living in the land and who had come to worship the Lord God of Israel. ²²For seven days they joyfully celebrated the Festival of Unleavened Bread. They were full of joy because the Lord had made the emperor of Assyria^k favourable to them, so that he supported them in their work of rebuilding the Temple of the God of Israel.