22. For I was ashamed to ask of the king a band of soldiers and horsemen to help us against the enemy on the way, because we had spoken to the king, saying, “The hand of our God is on all those who seek him, for good; but his power and his wrath is against all those who forsake him.”
23. So we fasted and begged our God for this: and he granted our request.
24. Then I set apart twelve of the chiefs of the priests, even Sherebiah, Hashabiah, and ten of their brothers with them,
25. and weighed to them the silver, the gold, and the vessels, even the offering for the house of our God, which the king, his counselors, his princes, and all Israel there present, had offered.
26. I weighed into their hand six hundred fifty talents of silver, one hundred talents of silver vessels; one hundred talents of gold,
27. twenty bowls of gold weighing one thousand darics; and two vessels of fine bright bronze, precious as gold.
28. I said to them, “You are holy to the Lord, and the vessels are holy. The silver and the gold are a freewill offering to the Lord, the God of your fathers.
29. Watch and keep them, until you weigh them before the chiefs of the priests and the Levites, and the princes of the fathers’ households of Israel, at Jerusalem, in the rooms of the Lord’s house.”
30. So the priests and the Levites received 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 on the twelfth day of the first month, to go to Jerusalem. The hand of our God was on us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy and the bandit by the way.
32. We came to Jerusalem, and stayed there three days.
33. On the fourth day the silver and the gold and the vessels were weighed in the house of our God into the hand of Meremoth the son of Uriah the priest; and with him was Eleazar the son of Phinehas; and with them was Jozabad the son of Yeshua, and Noadiah the son of Binnui, the Levite;
34. everything by number and by weight; and all the weight was written at that time.
35. The children of the captivity, who had come out of exile, offered burnt offerings to the God of Israel, twelve bulls for all Israel, ninety-six rams, seventy-seven lambs, and twelve male goats for a sin offering. All this was a burnt offering to the Lord.