The decree of Cyrus
1
📚Now in the first year 📖 of Cyrus, king of Persia, so that the word of the LORD spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah 📖 might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus 📖, king of Persia, to make a proclamation throughout his whole kingdom, and also to put it in writing, saying:2 📚“Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia: The LORD God of heaven 📖 has given me 📖 all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has ordered me to build a house for him at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. 3 📚Whoever there is among you of all his people, may his God be with him, and may he go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the LORD God of Israel (he is God), which is in Jerusalem. 4 📚And the men of any place where any survivor 📖 is living are to help him with silver and with gold and with goods and with livestock, besides the freewill offering for the house of God in Jerusalem”.
First return of the exiles and what they brought
5 📚Then the heads of the fathers’ households of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and the Levites 📖, all those whose spirit God had moved 📖, rose up to go up to build the house of the LORD in Jerusalem. 6 📚And all those who were about them assisted them with articles of silver, with gold, with goods, and with livestock, and with valuable things, besides all that was given as a freewill offering.
1:6 Many other Jews helped those willing to return to Jerusalem, even though they did not wish to go themselves.⚜
7 📚Also King Cyrus brought out the articles of the house of the LORD which Nebuchadnezzar had brought from Jerusalem and had put in the house of his gods, 8 📚and Cyrus, king of Persia, brought them out by the hand of Mithredath the treasurer, and counted them out to Sheshbazzar 📖, the prince of Judah.
9 📚And this was the number of them: thirty gold dishes, a thousand silver dishes, twenty-nine knives, 10 thirty gold basins, four hundred and ten silver basins of a second kind, and a thousand other articles.
11 📚All the articles of gold and silver were five thousand four hundred 📖. Sheshbazzar brought all of these up with the exiles who were brought up from Babylon to Jerusalem.