Ezra 3:6-8

International Standard Version

⁶ They began to offer burnt offerings to the Lord from the first day of the seventh month, even though the foundation of the Temple of the Lord had not yet been laid.

Construction Begins on the Temple

⁷ They paid masons and carpenters in cash.^[a] They paid^[b] the residents of Sidon and Tyre with food, drink, and oil, for them to bring cedar trees by sea from Lebanon to Joppa in accordance with the order they had obtained from Cyrus, king of Persia.

⁸ Two years and two months after arriving at the site of the Temple of God in Jerusalem, Shealtiel’s son Zerubbabel, Jozadak’s son Jeshua, the relatives of the priests and descendants of Levi, and everyone else who had left the Babylonian^[c] captivity for Jerusalem appointed descendants of Levi who were 20 years old and older to oversee the work of the Lord’s Temple.