9. We asked their leaders some questions about the work they are doing. We asked them, “Who gave you permission to rebuild this temple and repair it like new?”
10. We also asked for their names. We wanted to write down the names of their leaders so that you would know who they are.
11. This is the answer they gave us: “We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth. We are rebuilding the Temple that a great king of Israel built and finished many years ago.
12. But our ancestors made the God of heaven angry, so God gave our ancestors to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar destroyed this Temple, and he forced the people to go to Babylon as prisoners.
13. But, in the first year that Cyrus was king of Babylon, King Cyrus gave a special order for God’s Temple to be rebuilt.
14. And Cyrus brought out from his false god’s temple in Babylon the gold and silver things that were taken from God’s Temple in the past. Nebuchadnezzar took them from the Temple in Jerusalem and brought them to his false god’s temple in Babylon. Then King Cyrus gave those gold and silver things to Sheshbazzar.” Cyrus chose Sheshbazzar to be governor.