1In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, so that Yahweh’s word spoken by Jeremiah would come true, Yahweh moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia. As a result, Cyrus made an announcement throughout his entire kingdom and also put it in writing, saying:
2“This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: ‘Yahweh, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth. He has commanded me to build a temple for him in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
3Anyone among you who belongs to his people, may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah. There, he should build the temple of Yahweh, the God of Israel (he is God).
4Wherever any of Yahweh's people live, the people in that place should help them with silver, gold, goods, and animals, in addition to the special gifts for God’s temple in Jerusalem.’
5So the family leaders of Judah and Benjamin, the priests, and the Levites—everyone whose spirit God had moved—got ready to go up and rebuild Yahweh’s temple in Jerusalem.
6All their neighbors supported them with silver articles, gold, goods, animals, and valuable items, in addition to all the freewill offerings.
7King Cyrus also brought out the items from Yahweh’s temple that Nebuchadnezzar had taken from Jerusalem and put in the temple of his own gods.
8Cyrus, the king of Persia, had Mithredath, his treasurer, bring them out and count them for Sheshbazzar, the leader of Judah.
9The count was: thirty gold dishes, one thousand silver dishes, twenty-nine knives,
10thirty gold bowls, four hundred ten silver bowls of a different kind, and one thousand other items.
11All the gold and silver items totaled five thousand four hundred. Sheshbazzar brought all these with him when the exiles were brought up from Babylon to Jerusalem.