Ezra 1

₁Many years before, the Lord had sent Jeremiah to tell his people that the Lord had promised them that He would help them, and now it was happening. It was the first year after Cyrus had become king of the land of Persia. The Lord made Cyrus decide to send a message to all the people in the lands where he was king. He wrote the message down and sent it to the people of Judah. He said:

₂‘King Cyrus of Persia says: The Lord God of heaven gave me all the lands on earth and He told me to build a temple in Jerusalem in the land_of_Judah. ₃All the people of the Lord may go back to Jerusalem. I pray that the Lord their God will be with them. They may go back and they may build the temple of the Lord, the God of Israel. The Lord is God in Jerusalem. ₄There are some people from Judah who still live in other places. The people who live near them must help those people of Judah. They must give those people of Judah silver and gold, animals and gifts for the temple in Jerusalem.’

₅Then the family leaders of Judah and Benjamin, the priests and the Levites prepared to go to Judah. God made other people decide to help build the temple in Jerusalem and they also prepared to go. ₆All the neighbours of the Israelites gave them silver and gold, the things that they needed, animals, expensive gifts and also things that they wanted to give them. ₇King Cyrus also gave back the things that Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, the things that he had put in the temple of his gods. ₈King Cyrus of Persia gave everything to Mithredath, the official who kept the money. Mithredath counted everything and he gave it to Sheshbazzar, the leader of the Judah tribe. ₉Here is a list of the things that he gave him:

₁₁There were 5 400 golden and silver dishes, basins and other things altogether. Sheshbazzar took this all with him when he took the people of Judah from Babylon to Jerusalem.