47. Then Jeshua, Jozadak’s son with his fellow priests, and Zerubbabel, Shealtiel’s son with his group, took their positions and prepared the altar of the God of Israel
48. to offer up entirely burned offerings, according to the stipulations in the scroll from Moses, the man of God.
49. Some from the other neighboring peoples gathered with them. They erected the altar in its proper place (even though all the other neighboring peoples were hostile to them and were stronger than they were). They offered sacrifices and entirely burned offerings to the Lord at the proper morning and evening times.
50. They celebrated the Festival of Booths, as it is commanded in the Law, and offered sacrifices daily as expected,
51. in addition to the continual offerings and sacrifices on sabbaths, at new moons, and at all the sacred feasts.
52. All who made a solemn promise to God began to offer sacrifices to God, from the new moon of the seventh month, even though God’s temple wasn’t yet rebuilt.
53. They gave money to the stonemasons and the carpenters, along with daily meals. They gave gifts to the Sidonians and the Tyrians, to deliver cedar logs from Lebanon and ferry them in rafts to the harbor of Joppa, according to the written orders they had from Persia’s King Cyrus.
54. In the second month of the second year, after they came to God’s temple in Jerusalem, Zerubbabel, Shealtiel’s son, and Jeshua, Jozadak’s son, made a new start, together with their associates and the levitical priests and all who had returned to Jerusalem from captivity.
55. They then laid the foundation of God’s temple on the new moon of the second month in the second year of their arrival in Judea and Jerusalem.
56. They appointed the Levites who were 20 years old or more in charge of the Lord’s work.Rising up were Jeshua, his sons and associates; his brother Kadmiel and Jeshua’s sons; Emadabun and Joda’s sons; and Iliadun’s son with their sons and brothers. With them, all the Levites worked with a common purpose doing the work in God’s house.