sengers
every way round about, and gathered those that were in the country
together to Jerusalem universally, who came very gladly thither. He then
built the altar on the same place it had formerly been built, that they
might offer the appointed sacrifices upon it to God, according to
the laws of Moses. But while they did this, they did not please the
neighboring nations, who all of them bare an ill-will to them. They also
celebrated the feast of tabernacles at that time, as the legislator had
ordained concerning it; and after they offered sacrifices, and what were
called the daily sacrifices, and the oblations proper for the Sabbaths,
and for all the holy festivals. Those also that had made vows performed
them, and offered their sacrifices from the first day of the seventh
month. They also began to build the temple, and gave a great deal of
money to the masons and to the carpenters, and what was necessary for
the maintenance of the workmen. The Sidonians also were very willing and
ready to bring the cedar trees from Libanus, to bind them together, and
to make a united float of them, and to bring them to the port of Joppa,
for that was what Cyrus had commanded at first, and what was now done at
the command of Darius.

2. In the second year of their coming to Jerusalem, as the Jews were
there in the second month, the building of the temple went on apace; and
when they had laid its foundations on the first day of the second month
of that second year, they set, as overseers of the work, such Levites
as were full twenty years old; and Jeshua and his sons and brethren, and
Codmiel the brother of Judas, the son of Aminadab, with his sons; and
the temple, by the great diligence of those that had the care of it, was
finished sooner than any one would have expected. And when the temple
was finished, the priests, adorned with their accustomed garments, stood
with their trumpets, while the Levites, and the sons of Asaph, stood
and sung hymns to God, according as David first of all appointed them
to bless God. Now the priests and Levites, and the elder part of
the families, recollecting with themselves how much greater and more
sumptuous the old temple had been, seeing that now made how much
inferior it was, on account of their poverty, to that which had been
built of old, considered with themselves how much their happy state was
sunk below what it had been of old, as well as their temple. Hereupon
they were disconsolate, and not a