24 Then I set apart twelve of the leading priests: ^eSherebiah, ^eHashabiah, and ten of their kinsmen with them. 25 And I weighed out to them the ⁿsilver and the gold and the vessels, the offering for the house of our God that the king and his ^ocounselors and his lords and all Israel there present had offered. 26 ^pI weighed out into their hand 650 talents¹ of silver, and silver vessels worth 200 talents,² and 100 talents of gold, 27 20 bowls of gold worth 1,000 darics,³ and two vessels of fine bright bronze as precious as gold. 28 And I said to them, ^q“You are holy to the Lord, and ^rthe vessels are holy, and the silver and the gold are a freewill offering to the Lord, the God of your fathers. 29 Guard them and keep them until you weigh them before the chief priests and the Levites and the heads of fathers’ houses in Israel at Jerusalem, ^swithin the chambers of the house of the Lord.” 30 So the priests and the Levites ^ptook over the weight of the silver and the gold and the vessels, to bring them to Jerusalem, to the house of our God.

31 Then we departed from the river Ahava ^ton the twelfth day of the first month, to go to Jerusalem. ^uThe hand of our God was on us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy and from ambushes by the way. 32 ^vWe came to Jerusalem, and there we remained three days. 33 On the fourth day, within the house of our God, the silver and the gold and the vessels were ^wweighed into the hands of ^xMeremoth the priest, son of Uriah, and with him was Eleazar the son of Phinehas, and with them were the Levites, ^yJozabad the son of Jeshua and Noadiah the son of ^zBinnui. 34 The whole was counted and weighed, and the weight of everything was recorded.

35 At that time ^athose who had come from captivity, the returned exiles, offered burnt offerings to the God of Israel, ^btwelve bulls for all Israel, ninety-six rams, seventy-seven lambs, and as a sin offering twelve male goats. All this was a burnt offering to the Lord. 36 ^cThey also delivered the king’s commissions to the king’s ^dsatraps⁴ and to the governors of the province Beyond the River, and they aided the people and the house of God.