17. Diligently use this money to buy bulls, rams, lambs, with their grain offerings and their drink offerings, and offer them on the altar of the house of your God in Jerusalem.
18. “Whatever seems good to you and your brothers to do with the rest of the silver and the gold, do that according to the will of your God.
19. The vessels also that are given to you for the service of the house of your God, deliver before the God of Jerusalem.
20. And whatever else is needed for the house of your God and is your responsibility to provide, use the king’s treasury to pay for it.
21. “I, even I Artaxerxes the king, issue a decree to all the treasurers of the province Beyond the River, that whatever Ezra the priest, scribe of the law of the God of heaven, should request from you, you should do it with all diligence—
22. as much as a hundred talents of silver, a hundred measures of wheat, a hundred baths of wine, a hundred baths of oil, and salt (without prescribing how much).
23. Whatever is decreed by the God of heaven, let it be zealously done for the house of the God of heaven so as to avoid there being wrath against the realm of the king and his sons.
24. Also we are informing you that with regard to all the priests, Levites, singers, doorkeepers, temple servants, or other servants of this house of God, it is not permitted to impose toll, tribute, or custom on them.