Ezra
Chapter 1
1 In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, to fulfill what God had said through Jeremiah, God moved Cyrus’s heart to announce to his entire kingdom, and also to write down, saying,
2 Cyrus, king of Persia, says, “God of heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and has told me to build a house for him in Jerusalem, in Judah.”
3 Who among you is from his people? May their God be with them, and let them go to Jerusalem in Judah to build the temple of the God of Israel, which is in Jerusalem.
4 Anyone staying where they are visiting should be helped by the locals with money, gold, other items, and animals, in addition to the voluntary gifts for God’s house in Jerusalem.
5 The leaders of the families of Judah and Benjamin, along with the priests and Levites, and all whose hearts God had moved, stood up to go and build God’s temple in Jerusalem.
6 Everyone around them supported them by giving silver dishes, gold, goods, animals, and valuable items, in addition to all the voluntary gifts.
7 King Cyrus gave back the items from God’s house that Nebuchadnezzar had taken from Jerusalem and placed in his own gods’ temple.
8 Cyrus, the king of Persia, had Mithredath the treasurer bring these out and count them for Sheshbazzar, the leader of Judah.
9 Here is the count of them: thirty gold plates, one thousand silver plates, and twenty-nine knives.
10 Thirty gold bowls, four hundred and ten silver bowls of another kind, and a thousand more objects.
11 All the gold and silver containers totaled five thousand four hundred. Sheshbazzar brought them all with the exiles who were coming from Babylon to Jerusalem.