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.
57. So the builders built God’s temple. The priests stood dressed up in their robes, with musical instruments and trumpets, and the Levites, Asaph’s sons, with cymbals, singing to the Lord and praising him, according to the directions of King David of Israel.
58. They sang hymns, praising the Lord, "God’s goodness and glory are on Israel forever."
59. The people blew trumpets and shouted loudly, singing to the Lord on the occasion of the construction of the Lord’s house.
60. Some of the levitical priests and leaders of family houses, the elderly who had seen the former house, came to this building with much weeping and wailing.
61. Many others came with trumpets and joy, with a tremendous uproar.
62. But the people couldn’t hear the trumpets because of the people’s weeping, even though the crowd was blowing the trumpets so loudly that the noise was heard far away.
63. When the enemies of the tribe of Judah and Benjamin heard it, they came to investigate what the sound of the trumpets meant.
64. They discovered that those who had returned from captivity were building the temple to the Lord God of Israel.
65. So they came before Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the leaders of the family houses and said to them, "We will build with you.
66. We also obey your Lord, and we have been giving offerings to him ever since the days of Assyria’s King Esarhaddon, who transported us here."
67. Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the leaders of the family houses in Israel, however, said to them, "We will have nothing to do with each other in building the house for the Lord our God.
68. We alone will build it for the Lord of Israel, just as Persia’s King Cyrus commanded us."
69. But the neighboring peoples harassed the Judeans and hindered their rebuilding.