Ezra On King Of Persia — Cyrus

Acknowledging G-d’s dominion, the book of Ezra starts with King Cyrus’ proclamation of his dominion given to him by G-d.

“Cyrus, King Of Persia — His Proclamation”

“The Building Of The Holy Temple”

In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, upon the conclusion of Hashem’s prophecy by the mouth of Jeremiah, Hashem aroused the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, and he issued a proclamation throughout his kingdom — and in writing as well, saying:
1:1
“Thus said Cyrus king of Persia: All the kingdoms of the earth has Hashem, God of heaven, given to me and He has commanded me to build Him a Temple in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
1:2
Whoever is among you of His entire people — may his God be with him — and let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah and build the Temple of Hashem, God of Israel — He is the God! — which is in Jerusalem.
1:3
So the heads of the families of Judah and Benjamin and the Kohanim and the Levites — with all those whose spirits God had aroused — got up to ascend and build the Temple of Hashem which is in Jerusalem.
:5
King Cyrus removed the vessels of the Temple of Hashem that Nebuchadnezzar had removed from Jerusalem and placed in the temple of his gods.
:7

1 In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus of the seed of Media, who was crowned over the kingdom of the Chaldeans.
2 In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, contemplated the calculations, the number of the years that the word of the Lord had come to Jeremiah the prophet, since the destruction of Jerusalem seventy years.
3 And I turned my face to the Lord God to beg with prayer and supplications, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.
4 And I prayed to the Lord my God, and I confessed, and I said, “Please, O Lord, O great and awesome God, Who keeps the covenant and the loving- kindness to those who love Him and keep His commandments.
5 We have sinned and have dealt iniquitously; we have dealt wickedly and have rebelled, turning away from Your commandments and from Your ordinances.
6 And we have not obeyed Your servants, the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings, our princes, and our forefathers, and to all the people of the land.
7 To You, O Lord, is the righteousness, and to us is the shamefacedness as of this day, to the people of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel both near and far, in all the lands to which you have driven them for the treachery that they have perpetrated toward You.
8 O Lord, to us is shamefacedness, to our kings, to our princes, and to our forefathers, who sinned against You.
9 To the Lord our God are the mercies and the pardons, for we have rebelled against Him.
10 And we have not hearkened to the voice of the Lord our God, to follow His teachings, which He placed before us by the hand of His servants, the prophets.
11 And all Israel have transgressed Your teaching, turning away, not heeding Your voice, and the curse and the oath, which are written in the Law of Moses, the servant of God, have befallen us, for we have sinned against Him.
12 And He has confirmed His word, which He spoke about us and about our judges who judged us, to bring upon us a great evil, which was not done under all the heavens, as was done in Jerusalem.
13 As is written in the Law of Moses, all this evil has come upon us, and we did not entreat the countenance of the Lord our God to repent of our iniquities and to contemplate Your truth.
14 And the Lord hastened with the evil and brought it upon us, for the Lord our God is righteous with all His deeds which He performs, and we did not hearken to His voice.
15 And now, O Lord our God, Who took Your people out of the land of Egypt with a strong hand, and You have made for Yourself a Name as of this day; we have sinned, we have dealt wickedly.
16 O Lord, according to all Your righteousness, may Your wrath and Your anger return now from Your city, Jerusalem, the mount of Your Sanctuary, for because of our sins and because of the iniquities of our forefathers, Jerusalem and Your people have become a mockery to all those surrounding us.
17 And now, hearken, O Lord our God, to Your servant’s prayer and to his supplications, and cause Your face to shine upon Your desolate Sanctuary, for the sake of the Lord.
18 O Lord, incline Your ear and hearken, open Your eyes and see our desolations and the city upon which Your name is called, because not for our righteousness do we cast our supplications before You, but for Your great mercies.
19 O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, hearken and do, do not delay; for Your sake, my God, for Your Name is called upon Your city and upon Your people.”
20 Now I was still speaking and praying and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel and casting my supplication before the Lord my God about the mount of the Sanctuary of my God.
21 While I was still speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I saw in the vision at first, approached me in swift flight about the time of the evening offering.
22 And he enabled me to understand, and he spoke with me, and he said, “Daniel, now I have come forth to make you skillful in understanding.
23 In the beginning of your supplications, a word came forth, and I have come to tell it, for you have desirable qualities; now contemplate the word and understand the vision.
24 Seventy weeks [of years] have been decreed upon your people and upon the city of your Sanctuary to terminate the transgression and to end sin, and to expiate iniquity, and to bring eternal righteousness, and to seal up vision and prophet, and to anoint the Holy of Holies.
25 And you shall know and understand that from the emergence of the word to restore and to rebuild Jerusalem until the anointed king [shall be] seven weeks, and [for] sixty-two weeks it will return and be built street and moat, but in troubled times.
26 And after the sixty-two weeks, the anointed one will be cut off, and he will be no more, and the people of the coming monarch will destroy the city and the Sanctuary, and his end will come about by inundation, and until the end of the war, it will be cut off into desolation.
27 And he will strengthen a covenant for the princes for one week, and half the week he will abolish sacrifice and meal- offering, and on high, among abominations, will be the dumb one, and until destruction and extermination befall the dumb one.