²² In the first year of Cyrus^(A) king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and also to put it in writing:

²³ “This is what Cyrus king of Persia says:

Cyrus Helps the Exiles to Return^(A)

1 In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah,^(B) the Lord moved the heart^(C) of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and also to put it in writing:

⁵ Then the family heads of Judah and Benjamin,^(K) and the priests and Levites—everyone whose heart God had moved^(L)—prepared to go up and build the house^(M) of the Lord in Jerusalem. ⁶ All their neighbors assisted them with articles of silver and gold,^(N) with goods and livestock, and with valuable gifts, in addition to all the freewill offerings.

⁷ Moreover, King Cyrus brought out the articles belonging to the temple of the Lord, which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and had placed in the temple of his god.^{[a](O) 8} Cyrus king of Persia had them brought by Mithredath the treasurer, who counted them out to Sheshbazzar^(P) the prince of Judah.

⁹ This was the inventory:

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

Rebuilding the Temple

⁷ Then they gave money to the masons and carpenters,^(A) and gave food and drink and olive oil to the people of Sidon and Tyre, so that they would bring cedar logs^(B) by sea from Lebanon^(C) to Joppa, as authorized by Cyrus^(D) king of Persia.

³ But Zerubbabel, Joshua and the rest of the heads of the families of Israel answered, “You have no part with us in building a temple to our God. We alone will build it for the Lord, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus, the king of Persia, commanded us.”^(A)