After the 70 years of the land resting so it could be new and fresh, the Lord God told Cyrus, the king where God’s people were, to say:

The Lord God of heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the world

and has given me the special job of building a house for Him at Jerusalem, which is in the land of Judah.

Any of you, all His people, who want to go back home to your special land, you can go now

and the Lord  God be with you.

Go up to Jerusalem and build the special house for Him.

And the people who don’t want to go back, you can help them by giving them gold and silver

and animals

and all the things they need for the journey

and the things they will need to build the house.

God’s people were given many precious things to go build God’s house at Jerusalem.

So the leaders of the Lord’s people that God’s Spirit spoke to

got up and got ready to go build God's house.

Cyrus, the king of Persia, brought out all the stuff of the Lord’s house that had been taken when the people were taken away out of their special land.

The treasurer counted the things and gave them to the prince of Judah. There were 30 large gold bowls,

1,000 silver platters, 29 knives, 30 gold basins, 410 silver basins, and 1,000 other silver dishes.

The grand total of gold and silver things used in the Lord’s temple were 5,400 that were brought from the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem and now were going to be taken back.

All the families were lined up and counted from each city that were taken away from the special land, Israel.

There were workers and priests and singers and  doorkeepers, and the children of Solomon’s servants.

The total people returning was 42,360 and more than that, their workers went with them who weren’t counted in the final total.

Also many horses, mules, and camels went with them and they carried many bags of gold and silver and special clothes that the priests wore when serving the Lord at His house.

When the children of Israel got back home to their special land and were settled in their cities, then they gathered together at Jerusalem all thinking the same thing.

They set up God’s altar and offered thank you offerings to God

for His great love and all that He did for them.

They bowed down to Him only in the ways that He said.

Then they started building the house for the Lord God.

When the bottom part for the house to stand on was finished,

they sang lots of songs to the Lord about how great He is and telling Him thank you for everything because He is sooooo good to us

and his great love for us lasts forever.