10. For your information, we also asked them for their names so that we would have a record of the men who were their leaders.
11. This was their reply to us:“We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth. We are rebuilding the temple that was originally built many years ago by a great king of Israel.
12. But because our ancestors made the God of heaven angry, he handed them over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon (a Chaldean). So Nebuchadnezzar destroyed this temple and deported its people to Babylon.
13. “However, in the first year of the reign of King Cyrus of Babylon, Cyrus gave permission for God’s temple to be rebuilt.
14. In addition, Cyrus took out of a temple in Babylon the gold and silver utensils that belonged to God’s temple. (Nebuchadnezzar had taken them out of God’s temple in Jerusalem and brought them into a temple in Babylon.) Cyrus gave them to a man named Sheshbazzar, whom he had made governor.
15. Cyrus told him, ‘Take these utensils. Place them in the temple in Jerusalem. Rebuild God’s temple on its original site.’
16. Then Sheshbazzar laid the foundation of God’s temple in Jerusalem. The temple has been under construction from that time until now, but it still isn’t finished.”
17. If it pleases Your Majesty, allow someone to search the king’s archives in Babylon to determine whether King Cyrus gave permission for the temple of God to be rebuilt in Jerusalem. Then please send us Your Majesty’s decision on this matter.