1 In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, to fulfill the LORD's word spoken through Jeremiah, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia to send a proclamation throughout his kingdom, and to put it in writing as well:
2 "This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: 'The LORD God of heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has appointed me to build him a house in Jerusalem, in Judah.
3 Whoever among you belongs to his people, may his God be with him; let him go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the house of the LORD God of Israel; he is the God who dwells in Jerusalem.
4 And let every survivor, in any place where he is living as a foreigner, be supported by the people of that place with silver and gold, goods and livestock, along with freewill offerings for the house of God in Jerusalem.'"
5 So the heads of the fathers' houses of Judah and Benjamin set out, with the priests and the Levites, all whose spirit God had stirred, to go up and build the house of the LORD in Jerusalem.
6 And all their neighbors helped them with vessels of silver, with gold, goods, livestock, and valuable things, in addition to all that was given as freewill offerings.
7 King Cyrus also brought out the vessels of the house of the LORD that Nebuchadnezzar had taken away from Jerusalem and placed in the temple of his gods.
8 Cyrus king of Persia had them brought out under the supervision of Mithredath the treasurer, who counted them out to Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah.
9 This was the count: thirty gold basins, a thousand silver basins, twenty-nine knives,
10 thirty gold bowls, four hundred and ten silver bowls of a second kind, and a thousand other vessels.
11 In all, the gold and silver vessels numbered five thousand four hundred. Sheshbazzar brought them all up when the exiles came up from Babylon to Jerusalem.