When the seventh month arrived and the Israelites were living in their towns, the people assembled in Jerusalem.

From the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the Lord. However, the Lord's temple was not at that time established.

In the second year after they had come to the temple of God in Jerusalem, in the second month, Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak initiated the work, along with the rest of their associates, the priests and the Levites, and all those who were coming to Jerusalem from the exile. They appointed the Levites who were at least twenty years old to take charge of the work on the Lord's temple.

They finished this temple on the third day of the month Adar, which is the sixth year of the reign of King Darius.

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

He entered Jerusalem in the fifth month of the seventh year of the king.

On the first day of the first month he had determined to make the ascent from Babylon, and on the first day of the fifth month he arrived at Jerusalem, for the good hand of his God was on him.

On the twelfth day of the first month we began traveling from the Ahava Canal to go to Jerusalem. The hand of our God was on us, and he delivered us from our enemy and from bandits along the way.

All the men of Judah and Benjamin were gathered in Jerusalem within the three days. (It was in the ninth month, on the twentieth day of that month.) All the people sat in the square at the temple of God, trembling because of this matter and because of the rains.

So the exiles proceeded accordingly. Ezra the priest separated out by name men who were leaders in their family groups. They sat down to consider this matter on the first day of the tenth month,

and on the first day of the first month they finished considering all the men who had married foreign wives.