1. In the first year of Cyrus as king of the Persians the Lord motivated the spirit of King Cyrus to fulfill the Lord’s word spoken through Jeremiah. He made a royal announcement throughout the whole of his kingdom that he also put into writing.
2. This is what Persia’s King Cyrus says:The Lord of Israel, the Most High Lord, has appointed me king of the entire world. The Lord has commissioned me to build God’s house in Jerusalem in Judea.
3. Therefore, if you are from this nation, may your Lord be with you. Go up to Jerusalem in Judea and build the house of the Lord of Israel—for this is the Lord who dwells in Jerusalem.
4. As many of you live in other places, help the Lord with gold and silver, with horses and cattle, in addition to pledging other things dedicated for the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem.
5. Then the heads of the families of Judah and Benjamin rose up. The priests and the Levites, and everyone whose spirit the Lord aroused, went up to build a house for the Lord in Jerusalem.
6. Their neighbors helped them with everything, with silver and gold, with horses and cattle, and with many other things pledged by those whose minds were inspired to do so.
7. King Cyrus also brought out the Lord’s holy equipment that Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and placed in his temple of idols.
8. When King Cyrus of the Persians brought these out, he handed them over to Mithridates, his own treasurer, and through him they were given over to Governor Sheshbazzar of Judea.
9. The number of these was one thousand gold cups, one thousand silver cups, twenty-nine silver censers,
10. thirty gold bowls, twenty-four hundred ten silver bowls, and one thousand other objects.
11. They handed over all five thousand four hundred sixty-nine gold and silver objects. So Sheshbazzar, with the help of war prisoners returning from Babylon, carried the equipment back to Jerusalem.
12. Then during the time of King Artaxerxes of the Persians, Bishlam, Mithridates, Tabeel, Rehum, Beltethmus, Shimshai the scribe, and others associated with them living in Samaria and other places nearby wrote the king a letter, opposing those who were living in Judea and Jerusalem: