A reading from the book of Ezra.

When the seventh month came and the children of Israel were in the towns, the people gathered

as one man to Jerusalem.

Then arose Jesua the son of Josadak with his fellow priests and Zeribabaabal the son of Shial

with his kinsmen, and they built the altar of the God of Israel

to offer burnt offerings on it as it is written in the law of Moses, the man of God.

They set the altar in its place, for fear was on them because of the peoples of the lands,

and they offered burnt offerings on it to the Lord,

burnt offerings morning and evening, and they kept the feast of Booths, as it is written,

and offered the daily burnt offerings by number, according to the rule, as each day required.

And after that the regular burnt offerings, the offerings at the New Moon, and at all

the appointed feasts of the Lord, and the offerings of everyone who made a free-will offering

to the Lord.

From the first day of the seventh month, they began to offer burnt offerings to the Lord,

but the foundation of the Temple of the Lord was not yet laid.

So they gave money to the masons and the carpenters, and food drank and oil to the Sidonians

and the Tyrians to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea, to Joppa, according to the grant

that they had from Cyrus, King of Persia.

Now in the second year after they're coming to the House of God at Jerusalem, in the second month, Zeribabel the son of Sha'altiel and Joshua the son of Josadak

made a beginning, together with the rest of their kinsmen, the priests and the Levites, and all who had come to Jerusalem

from the captivity. They appointed the Levites, from 20 years old and upward, to supervise the

work of the house of the Lord. And Jesua with his sons and his brothers, and Cadmiel and his sons,

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