1 Esdras 5:54–73

⁵⁴And they gave money to the masons and the carpenters, and food and drink ⁵⁵and carts to the Sidonians and the Tyrians, to bring cedar logs from Lebanon and convey them in rafts to the harbor of Joppa, according to the decree which they had in writing from Cyrus king of the Persians.

⁵⁶In the second year after their coming to the temple of God in Jerusalem, in the second month, Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak made a beginning, together with their brethren and the Levitical priests and all who had come to Jerusalem from the captivity; ⁵⁷and they laid the foundation of the temple of God on the new moon of the second month in the second year after they came to Judea and Jerusalem. ⁵⁸And they appointed the Levites who were twenty or more years of age to have charge of the work of the Lord. And Jeshua arose, and his sons and brethren and Kadmiel his brother and the sons of Jeshua Emadabun and the sons of Joda son of Iliadun, with their sons and brethren, all the Levites, as one man pressing forward the work on the house of God.

So the builders built the temple of the Lord. ⁵⁹And the priests stood arrayed in their garments, with musical instruments and trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, ⁶⁰praising the Lord and blessing him, according to the directions of David king of Israel; ⁶¹and they sang hymns, giving thanks to the Lord, because his goodness and his glory are for ever upon all Israel. ⁶²And all the people sounded trumpets and shouted with a great shout, praising the Lord for the erection of the house of the Lord. ⁶³Some of the Levitical priests and heads of fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the former house, came to the building of this one with outcries and loud weeping, ⁶⁴while many came with trumpets and a joyful noise, ⁶⁵so that the people could not hear the trumpets because of the weeping of the people.

For the multitude sounded the trumpets loudly, so that the sound was heard afar; ⁶⁶and when the enemies of the tribe of Judah and Benjamin heard it, they came to find out what the sound of the trumpets meant. ⁶⁷And they learned that those who had returned from captivity were building the temple for the Lord God of Israel. ⁶⁸So they approached Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the heads of the fathers’ houses and said to them, “We will build with you. ⁶⁹For we obey your Lord just as you do and we have been sacrificing to him ever since the days of Esarhaddon king of the Assyrians, who brought us here.” ⁷⁰But Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the heads of the fathers’ houses in Israel said to them, “You have nothing to do with us in building the house for the Lord our God, ⁷¹for we alone will build it for the Lord of Israel, as Cyrus the king of the Persians has commanded us.” ⁷²But the peoples of the land pressed hard upon those in Judea, cut off their supplies, and hindered their building; ⁷³and by plots and demagoguery and uprisings they prevented the completion of the building as long as King Cyrus lived. And they were kept from building for two years, until the reign of Darius.