⁵ Then the leaders of the families of Judah and Benjamin prepared to return to Jerusalem. The priests and the Levites also prepared to go. God had put a thought in the minds of all those people that they should go. So they prepared everything that they needed to go and build the Lord's temple in Jerusalem. ⁶ Their neighbours gave them silver things, gold things and other valuable gifts, as well as animals. They also gave them offerings for the temple.

⁷ Then King Cyrus brought the valuable things that King Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the Lord's temple in Jerusalem.^[a] Nebuchadnezzar had taken them from Jerusalem and brought them to Babylon. He had put them in the temple of his own gods.