11. They responded to us saying, ‘We are servants of the God of heaven and earth, and we are rebuilding the House that was built many years ago. A great king of Israel built and finished it.
12. But because our fathers angered the God of heaven, He gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, the Chaldean. He destroyed this House and carried the people away to Babylon.
13. ‘However, in the first year of Cyrus, king of Babylon, King Cyrus issued a decree to rebuild this House of God.
14. Even the gold and silver utensils of the House of God that Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the Temple in Jerusalem and had carried away to the temple in Babylon—King Cyrus took those things from the temple in Babylon and gave them to a man named Sheshbazzar, whom he had appointed governor.