50. Some of the local people, even though they were stronger than the Jews and opposed to them, joined them in rebuilding the altar where it had stood before. Then the Jews began once again to burn the regular morning and evening sacrifices on the altar.
51. They celebrated the Festival of Shelters, according to the regulations, each day offering the sacrifices required for that day.
52. They also offered the normal daily sacrifices, as well as those required for the Sabbath, the New Moon Festival, and the other regular assemblies for worship.
53. Although the people had not yet rebuilt God's Temple, everyone who had made a vow to God began to offer sacrifices on the first day of the seventh month.
54. The people gave money to pay the stonemasons and the carpenters; they gave food, drink,
55. and carts to be sent to the cities of Tyre and Sidon in exchange for cedar logs from Lebanon, which were to be floated to the harbour at Joppa. All this was done according to the orders given by Cyrus, emperor of Persia.
56-57. So in the second month of the year after they came back to the site of the Temple in Jerusalem, they started the work and began laying the foundation. Zerubbabel, Joshua, and the rest of their fellow-Israelites, the priests, and the Levites — in fact, all the exiles who had come back to Jerusalem, joined in the work.