Ezra 1

1In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, to fulfill the word of Yahweh spoken by Jeremiah, Yahweh stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he sent a proclamation throughout his whole kingdom and also put it in writing:

2“This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: Yahweh, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has appointed me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.

3Whoever among you belongs to any of his people, may his God be with him! Let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of Yahweh, the God of Israel; he is the God who is in Jerusalem.

4And every survivor, in whatever place he is living, is to be helped by the people of that place with silver and gold, with goods and livestock, along with freewill offerings for the house of God in Jerusalem.”

5Then the heads of the ancestral houses of Judah and Benjamin, along with the priests and the Levites—everyone whose spirit God had stirred up—got ready to go up and build the house of Yahweh in Jerusalem.

6All their neighbors supported them with articles of silver, with gold, with goods, with livestock, and with valuable gifts, besides all that was given as freewill offerings.

7King Cyrus also brought out the articles of the house of Yahweh that Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and placed in the house of his gods.

8Cyrus king of Persia had them brought out under the supervision of Mithredath the treasurer, who counted them out to Sheshbazzar the prince of Judah.

9This was their inventory: thirty gold dishes, one thousand silver dishes, twenty-nine knives,

10thirty gold bowls, 410 silver bowls of a second kind, and one thousand other articles.

11In all there were 5,400 articles of gold and silver. Sheshbazzar brought all of them up when the exiles were brought up from Babylon to Jerusalem.