In the first year of the Persian king, Cyrus, the Lord fulfilled the promise which he had made through Jeremias. He put a new resolve into the heart of Cyrus, king of Persia, who thereupon published a written decree all through his dominions;

A message, it said, from Cyrus, king of Persia. The Lord God of heaven has made me master of the world, and now he will have me rebuild his own temple for him at Jerusalem, a city of Judaea.

Who is left among you of that race? To Jerusalem let him go, in Judaea, with divine aid to speed him; and there let him help to build the temple of the Lord God of Israel, who is the true God.✻

And let all others take note, that such a man is to receive assistance from his neighbours; silver and gold, stores and beasts are to be put at his disposal, apart from the offerings they may make, of their own free will, to this temple of God at Jerusalem.

Thereupon the clan chiefs of Juda and Benjamin, with priests and Levites and all whom God had so inspired, set out for Jerusalem to rebuild the Lord’s temple there;

and all their neighbours lightened the task for them with presents of silver ware and gold, of stores, beasts and furniture, over and above the offerings that were freely made.

King Cyrus himself brought the temple ornaments out again; these had been carried off from Jerusalem by Nabuchodonosor, who laid them up in the temple of his own god,

but now, at the orders of the Persian king Cyrus, Mithridates son of Gezabar must bring them out again, and give full account of them to Sassabasar, chief of the tribe of Juda.

And this was the count made: gold trays thirty, and silver trays a thousand, knives twenty-nine, cups of gold thirty, …

baser cups of silver four hundred and ten, … and a thousand other appurtenances;✻

in all, of gold and silver appurtenances, five thousand four hundred. All these were taken back to Jerusalem by Sassabasar and the exiles who returned with him from Babylon.