Ezra 3

  "And they sang together by course in praising and giving thanks unto the LORD; because he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever toward Israel. And all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid.
   But many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice; and many shouted aloud for joy." Ezra 3:11-12
I got really excites while meditating on this passage. If you've never read the book of Ezra, you wouldn't understand.
The people of Israel were captive in Babylon/Medo-Persia for 70 years. They were out of hope. They had deserted God, and it seemed He had deserted them. Then Cyrus said they could go back , so they went! And in Chapter three, the culmination of their deepest hopes is realized. They gather in Jerusalem to worship their God!  Finally they have a restored relationship in which they can communicate with and worship their God! Can you imagine what it must have been like for them to watch their one link to God go up in flames when the temple was burned? Can you imagine what it would be like NOT to be directly connected to (through Jesus) to God? That is what they had lived with (besides the pressures of being slaves in a foreign land). Then to top it all off The foundation is FINISHED!!!!! Jerusalem! They city of Israel's heart! The city they loved, was being rebuilt. If you've never read about or known any Jews than it may be hard to understand what Jerusalem meant to them. I cannot fully understand it myself. All I know is that this mean so much to them that they were laughing and crying and going crazy with joy! Wow. That's cool!