Cyrus helps the Jews return to Jerusalem

¹ In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, Yahweh wil led to ful fill the word he had said through the prophet Jere miah, so he moved the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, to issue the following command and send it out in writing to be read aloud everywhere in his kingdom, ² “Thus speaks Cyrus, king of Persia: Yah weh, the God of heavens, who has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, has ordered me to build him a Temple in Jerusalem, in the land of Judah. ³ To everyone belonging to his people, may his God be with him! Let them go up to Jerusalem with the help of their God and there build the House of Yahweh, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem. ⁴ In every place where the rest of the people of Yahweh live, let the people of those places help them for their journey with silver, gold and all kinds of goods and livestock. Let them also give them voluntary offerings for the House of Yahweh which is in Jerusalem.”

⁵ Then they rose up – the heads of the families of Judah and Benjamin, the priests and the Levites, and all those whose spirit God had stirred up – and they decided to go and build the House of Yahweh. ⁶ And all their neighbors gave them all kinds of help: gold, silver, livestock and precious ob jects in great quantity, besides every kind of voluntary offering.

⁷ King Cyrus also brought out the vessels of the House of Yahweh which Nebuchad nezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and placed in the house of his gods. ⁸ Cyrus, the king, gave them into the hands of Mithredath, the treasurer, who counted them and turned them over to Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah.

⁹ This is the list: golden cups for the offering, 30; silver cups for offering,1000; knives, 29; ¹⁰ other cups of gold, 30; of silver, 410; other vessels, 1,000.

¹¹ Total number of golden and silver vessels: 5,400. All this was brought out by Sheshbazzar when the exiles were allowed to return to Jerusalem from Baby lon.