<p class="bodytext">They slaughtered the Passover lamb on the fourteenth day of the second month. The priests and Levites were ashamed, so they consecrated themselves and brought burnt sacrifices to the <sc>Lordsc>&#8217;s temple.

Malkijah son of Harim and Hasshub son of Pahath-Moab worked on another section and the Tower of the Fire Pots.

Adjacent to him Ezer son of Jeshua, head of Mizpah, worked on another section, opposite the ascent to the armory at the buttress.

After him Baruch son of Zabbai worked on another section, from the buttress to the door of the house of Eliashib the high priest.

After him Meremoth son of Uriah, the son of Hakkoz, worked on another section from the door of Eliashib&#8217;s house to the end of it.<n id="1" />p>

After him Binnui son of Henadad worked on another section, from the house of Azariah to the buttress and the corner.

<p class="bodytext">On the second day of the month the family leaders<n id="1" /> met with<n id="2" /> Ezra the scribe, together with all the people, the priests, and the Levites, to consider the words of the law.

<p class="bodytext">The second choir was proceeding<n id="1" /> in the opposite direction. I followed them, along with half the people, on top of the wall, past the Tower of the Ovens to the Broad Wall,

<p class="bodytext">So Queen Esther, the daughter of Abihail, and Mordecai the Jew wrote with full authority to confirm this second<n id="1" /> letter about Purim.

<p class="poetry">For if they fall, one will help his companion up,p> <p class="poetry">but pity<n id="1" /> the person who falls down and has no one to help him up.p>

<p class="poetry">I considered all the living who walk on earth,<n id="1" />p> <p class="poetry">as well as the successor<n id="2" /> who would arise<n id="3" /> in his place.p>

<n id="1" /><p class="bodytext">&#8220;This will be your reminder that I have spoken the truth:<n id="2" /> This year you will eat what grows wild,<n id="3" /> and next year<n id="4" /> what grows on its own. But the year after that<n id="5" /> you will plant seed and harvest crops; you will plant vines and consume their produce.<n id="6" />

<p class="bodytext">The <sc>Lordsc> again asked me, &#8220;What do you see?&#8221; I answered, &#8220;I see a pot of boiling water; it is tipped toward us from the north.&#8221;<n id="1" />

Each of the cherubim<n id="1" /> had four faces: The first was the face of a cherub,<n id="2" /> the second that of a man, the third that of a lion, and the fourth that of an eagle.p>

<p class="bodytext">&#8220;On the second day, you will offer a male goat without blemish for a sin offering. They will purify the altar just as they purified it with the bull.

Before he could reply I asked again, &#8220;What are these two extensions<n id="1" /> of the olive trees, which are emptying out the golden oil through the two golden pipes?&#8221;

Then I cut the second staff &#8220;Binders&#8221; in two in order to annul the covenant of brotherhood between Judah and Israel.p>

<p class="bodytext">You also do this: You cover the altar of the <sc>Lordsc> with tears<n id="1" /> as you weep and groan, because he no longer pays any attention to the offering nor accepts it favorably from you.

In the second year after they had come to the temple of God in Jerusalem,<n id="1" /> in the second month, Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak initiated the work,<n id="2" /> along with the rest of their associates,<n id="3" /> the priests and the Levites, and all those who were coming to Jerusalem from the exile. They appointed<n id="4" /> the Levites who were at least twenty years old<n id="5" /> to take charge of the work on the <sc>Lordsc>&#8217;s temple.

<p class="bodytext">In the six hundredth year of Noah&#8217;s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month &#8211; on that day all the fountains of the great deep<n id="1" /> burst open and the floodgates of the heavens<n id="2" /> were opened.