Chapter-A-Day Audio Bible - Ezra 1

0:00Want to keep God's word with you wherever you go? The Key James Bible Study KJV at by Salem Media makes it easy to read, study, share, and pray daily with the Timeless KJV translation. Enjoy features like offline access, audio Bible listening, smart search, and tools to highlight bookmark and take notes, all designed to keep your Bible Studies simple and organized. Best of all, it's free to download in the Google Play Store, growing your faith every day. Search for Key James Bible Study KJV and download the app today. Live Audio For more resources to help you in your walk with Christ, please visit us at BibleStudyHeadquarters.com. Want to keep God's word with you wherever you go? The Key James Bible Study KJV at by Salem Media makes it easy to read, study, share, and pray daily with the Timeless KJV translation. Enjoy features like offline access, audio Bible listening, smart search, and tools to highlight bookmark and take notes, all designed to keep your Bible Studies simple and organized.

1:01Best of all, it's free to download in the Google Play Store, growing your faith every day. Search for Key James Bible Study KJV and download the app today. You're listening to the chapter a day, audio Bible. I'm John Stongy and today we're in Ezra Chapter 1 and we'll be reading from the message. In the first year of Cyrus King of Persia, this fulfilled the message of God preached by Jeremiah. God prodded Cyrus King of Persia to make an official announcement throughout his kingdom. He wrote it out as follows. From Cyrus King of Persia, a proclamation, God, the God of the heavens, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth. He is also assigned me to build him a temple of worship in Jerusalem, Judah. Who among you belongs to his people? God be with you.

2:02Go to Jerusalem which is in Judah and build the temple of God, the God of Israel, Jerusalem's God. Those who stay behind, wherever they happen to live, will support them with silver, gold, tools, and pack animals, along with free will offerings for the temple of God in Jerusalem. The heads of the families of Judah and Benjamin, along with the priests and Levites, everyone in fact, God prodded, set out to build the temple of God in Jerusalem. Their neighbors rallied behind them enthusiastically with silver, gold, tools, pack animals, expensive gifts, and over and above these free will offerings. Also, King Cyrus turned over to them all the vessels and utensils from the temple of God that Nebuchadnezzar had hauled from Jerusalem and put in the temple of his gods. Cyrus King of Persia put Mithradath, the treasurer, in charge of the transfer.

3:05He provided a full inventory for Shesh Bazar, the Prince of Judah, including the following. Thirty gold dishes, 1,000 silver dishes, 29 silver pans, 30 gold bowls, 410 duplicate silver bowls, 1,000 miscellaneous items. All told, there were 5,400 gold and silver articles that Shesh Bazar took with him when he brought the exiles back from Babylon to Jerusalem. Lord, we thank You for Your Word and we thank You for the privilege of being able to look at it today. And we thank You, Lord, for the variety of things that we see in this passage. We see that You fulfilled the promise that You had made through Your prophet. We see that You were able to take the heart of a king, the most powerful king on earth at the time, and steer it in the direction that You wanted it to go.

4:07We see that You were able to make the people favorably inclined toward the people who would be heading back to Jerusalem, and they generously shared what You would bless them with, with those who would need it, so that the temple could be rebuilt. Lord, we're grateful to be able to see all of these things in this passage. And Lord, as we see these stories of how the physical temple was built in Jerusalem, were reminded of what You tell us elsewhere in Your Word, that You're building more than just a physical temple, You're building up Your church, and each individual person, each individual life, is like another brick in the building that You're building up. And the cornerstone is Your Son, Jesus Christ, who holds the building, who holds the church together. Or we're grateful for the fact that You have revealed to us our need for Your Son, Jesus Christ in our lives, and we're grateful, Lord, that You willingly choose to build us up as Your family. You equip us, You strengthen us, and You place us right where You want us, so that we could

5:07function in Your kingdom in such a way that You receive glory and others receive benefit. Lord, we're grateful for these things. We thank You for all that You do on our behalf, and we thank You, Lord, that You are present with us today. We commit the state to Your care, and we pray this all in Jesus' name, amen. I'm Mark Vinette, host of the Historical Jesus Podcast, which presents the new series, Miracles, focusing on biblical miracles from the old and new testament. Join me on the Historical Jesus Podcast as I explore the interesting, compelling, intriguing, and wonderful miracle stories of the Bible, and the many great miraculous events inspired by the words and deeds of Jesus Christ.