When some of the men who had seen the great big temple that Solomon had made for the Lord saw this new house for the Lord wasn’t going to be so big and they started crying real loud.

 

But some people were happy and shouting loud because they were happy to be building the house for the Lord God.

 

 

So some people were laughing and some were crying and the noise was heard far away.

When the enemies, the bad ones, heard that the children of Israel came back to the God’s special land and started to rebuild the Lord God’s house at Jerusalem, they came to them and said, Let us help you build.

 

 

 

But Israel’s leaders knew that it was a trick to stop the work. They said 'no' and didn’t let the enemies help them build the Lord’s house.

 

The enemies caused lots of trouble and wrote to the leader of the country over them saying bad lies about the children of Israel so the leader made them stop building God’s house for a lot of years.

 

Later, when there was another king over the countries, the children of Israel started building God’s house again, because the Lord sent word through His prophets, for the people to build.

 

 

The enemies tried to stop them again, but God was watching over the children of Israel and helping them.

When the enemies asked the children of Israel the names of the builders, the children of Israel told them, We are servants of the God of heaven and earth, and are building again the house that was built many years ago.

But our fathers did many bad things that made the Lord God of heaven so angry that He gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, who destroyed the house of God and took the people away to Babylon.

Then, the first year that Cyrus was king, he took the gold and silver dishes and things that had been taken from here and gave them to us and sent us back here with the Lord’s things to build this house.

 

 

 

After this talk the enemies sent another letter against the children of Israel to the new king telling him all these things.

 

 

The new king whose name was Darius told his workers to search and see what was true.

Then the new king told the men who sent the letter, trying to stop the children of Israel from building, to keep far away from the men who were building the temple for the Lord God at Jerusalem.

And on top of that the men were to pay all the cost for these men building and for their food from king Darius’ money that was gathered in that area for taxes.

And when the temple was finished, the men who wrote the letter were to give money to the children of Israel for offerings from the king’s money to give to the Lord God at His house in Jerusalem. And they were to ask the Lord to bless the king and his sons lives and keep them safe.

 

 

 

And if anyone tried to change what the king said about this or stop it, he was to be hanged and his house made a pile of garbage.

 

 

So the children of Israel finished building the Lord God’s house with this help from king Darius and those who made trouble for them and tried to stop it.

Then they had a big party to the Lord God with great happiness and the people kept away from all the bad stuff from the bad one and kept their hearts only to the Lord God who made them and blessed them all through the years.

They kept the big party going for 7 days because God made them so happy by turning the king of Assyria’s heart to help them and make their hands strong to finish building the house of the Lord, The God of Israel.