Bible Verses About The Second Temple

In the first year of Cyrus king of the Persians, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremias might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of the Persians: and he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and in writing also, saying:

Thus saith Cyrus king of the Persians: The Lord the God of heaven hath given to me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he hath charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judea.

Who is there among you of all his people? His God be with him. Let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judea, and build the house of the Lord the God of Israel: he is the God that is in Jerusalem.

And let all the rest in all places wheresoever they dwell, help him every man from his place, with silver and gold, and goods, and cattle, besides that which they offer freely to the temple of God, which is in Jerusalem.

And king Cyrus brought forth vessels of the temple of the Lord, which Nabuchodonosor had taken from Jerusalem, and had put them in the temple of his god.

Now Cyrus king of Persia brought them forth by the hand of Mithridates the son of Gazabar, and numbered them to Sassabasar the prince of Juda.

And this is the number of them: thirty bowls of gold, a thousand bowls of silver, nine and twenty knives, thirty cups of gold,

Silver cups of a second sort, four hundred and ten: other vessels a thousand.

All the vessels of gold and silver, five thousand four hundred: all these Sassabasar brought with them that came up from the captivity of Babylon to Jerusalem.

And now the seventh month was come, and the children of Israel were in their cities: and the people gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem.

And Josue the son of Josedec rose up, and his brethren the priests, and Zorobabel the son of Salathiel, and his brethren, and they built the altar of the God of Israel that they might offer holocausts upon it, as it is written in the law of Moses the man of God.

And they set the altar of God upon its bases, while the people of the lands round about put them in fear, and they offered upon it a holocaust to the Lord morning and evening.

And they kept the feast of tabernacles, as it is written, and offered the holocaust every day orderly according to the commandment, the duty of the day in its day.

And afterwards the continual holocaust, both on the new moons, and on all the solemnities of the Lord, that were consecrated, and on all in which a freewill offering was made to the Lord.

From the first day of the seventh month they began to offer holocausts to the Lord: but the temple of God was not yet founded.

And they gave money to hewers of stones and to masons: and meat and drink, and oil to the Sidonians and Tyrians, to bring cedar trees from Libanus to the sea of Joppe, according to the orders which Cyrus king of the Persians had given them.

And in the second year of their coming to the temple of God in Jerusalem, the second month, Zorobabel the son of Salathiel, and Josue the son of Josedec, and the rest of their brethren the priests, and the Levites, and all that were come from the captivity to Jerusalem began, and they appointed Levites from twenty years old and upward, to hasten forward the work of the Lord.

Then Josue and his sons and his brethren, Cedmihel, and his sons, and the children of Juda, as one man, stood to hasten them that did the work in the temple of God: the sons of Henadad, and their sons, and their brethren the Levites.

And when the masons laid the foundations of the temple of the Lord, the priests stood in their ornaments with trumpets: and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise God by the hands of David king of Israel.

And they sung together hymns, and praise to the Lord: because he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever towards Israel. And all the people shouted with a great shout, praising the Lord, because the foundations of the temple of the Lord were laid.

But many of the priests and the Levites, and the chief of the fathers and the ancients that had seen the former temple; when they had the foundation of this temple before their eyes, wept with a loud voice: and many shouting for joy, lifted up their voice.

So that one could not distinguish the voice of the shout of joy, from the noise of the weeping of the people: for one with another the people shouted with a loud shout, and the voice was heard afar off.

Now the enemies of Juda and Benjamin heard that the children of the captivity were building a temple to the Lord the God of Israel.

And they came to Zorobabel, and the chief of the fathers, and said to them: Let us build with you, for we seek your God as ye do: behold we have sacrificed to him, since the days of Asor Haddan king of Assyria, who brought us hither.

But Zorobabel, and Josue, and the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel said to them: You have nothing to do with us to build a house to our God, but we ourselves alone will build to the Lord our God, as Cyrus king of the Persians hath commanded us.