1In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, Yahweh fulfilled his word that came from the mouth of Jeremiah, and stirred Cyrus's spirit. Cyrus' voice went out over his entire kingdom. This is what was written and spoken:

2“Cyrus, king of Persia, says: Yahweh, God of Heaven, gave me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he appointed me to build for him a house in Jerusalem in Judea.

3Whoever is from his people (may his God be with him) may go up to Jerusalem and build a house for Yahweh, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem.

4People of any part of the kingdom where survivors of that land are living should provide them with silver and gold, possessions and animals, as well as a freewill offering for God's house in Jerusalem.”

5Then the heads of the ancestors' clans of Judah and Benjamin, the priests and Levites, and everyone whose spirit God stirred to go and build his house arose.

6Those around them supported their work with silver and gold objects, possessions, animals, valuables, and freewill offerings.

7Cyrus king of Persia also released the objects belonging to Yahweh's house that Nebuchadnezzar had brought from Jerusalem and put in his own gods' houses.

8Cyrus put them into the hand of Mithredath the treasurer, who counted them out for Sheshbazzar, Judea's leader.

9This was their number: thirty gold basins, one thousand silver basins, twenty-nine other basins,

10thirty gold bowls, 410 small silver bowls, and one thousand additional objects.

11There were 5,400 gold and silver items in all. Sheshbazzar brought all of them when the exiles went from Babylon to Jerusalem.