Ezra 1:1-3
EasyEnglish Bible
Cyrus sends the Jews back to Jerusalem
1 In the first year that Cyrus, king of Persia, was ruling Babylon, the Lord put a thought in his mind.[a] King Cyrus decided to send a message to everybody who lived in his kingdom. His message would cause what God had already spoken to his prophet Jeremiah to become true.[b] The message was written down and people took it all over Cyrus's kingdom. It said:
2 ‘This is what Cyrus, the king of Persia says:
The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me power over all the kingdoms of the earth. He has said that I must build a temple for him in Jerusalem, the city that is in Judah.[c] 3 Any of God's people who live among you may now return to Jerusalem. I pray that their God will be with them. They must build a temple there for the Lord, Israel's God. He is the God whose home is in Jerusalem.
Read full chapterFootnotes
- 1:1 When we write Lord like this, it is a special name for God. Sometimes people write it as ‘Yahweh’, or as ‘Jehovah’. It is his own name that he told Moses. See Exodus 3:14. It means ‘I am who I am’. This shows that God has always been there and he always will be there.
- 1:1 See Jeremiah 29:10
- 1:2 Judah was the most important Israelite tribe.
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