By the seventh month, the Israelites had settled in their towns, and the people gathered together in Jerusalem.

On the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the Lord, even though the foundation of the Lord’s temple had not yet been laid.

In the second month of the second year after they arrived at God’s house in Jerusalem, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, Jeshua son of Jozadak, and the rest of their brothers, including the priests, the Levites, and all who had returned to Jerusalem from the captivity, began to build. They appointed the Levites who were 20 years old or more to supervise the work on the Lord’s house.

This house was completed on the third day of the month of Adar in the sixth year of the reign of King Darius.

The exiles observed the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month.

Ezra came to Jerusalem in the fifth month, during the seventh year of the king.

He began the journey from Babylon on the first day of the first month and arrived in Jerusalem on the first day of the fifth month since the gracious hand of his God was on him.

We set out from the Ahava River on the twelfth day of the first month to go to Jerusalem. We were strengthened by our God, and He protected us from the power of the enemy and from ambush along the way.

So all the men of Judah and Benjamin gathered in Jerusalem within the three days. On the twentieth day of the ninth month, all the people sat in the square at the house of God, trembling because of this matter and because of the heavy rain.

The exiles did what had been proposed. Ezra the priest selected men who were family leaders, all identified by name, to represent their ancestral houses. They convened on the first day of the tenth month to investigate the matter,

and by the first day of the first month they had dealt with all the men who had married foreign women.