16 Whatever you and your people wish to do with the gold and silver, do it according to God’s will.
17 Deliver the Lord’s holy equipment that is given to you for use in your God’s temple in Jerusalem.
18 Whatever else you think of that is needed in your God’s temple, pay for it out of the royal treasury.
19 I, King Artaxerxes, have commanded the treasurers of Syria and Phoenicia so that whatever Ezra the priest and reader of the Law of the Most High God sends for, they should give to him completely, up to 5,700 pounds of silver,
20 up to one hundred kors of wheat, one hundred baths of wine, and a lot of salt.
21 Let everything be carried out for the Most High God strictly according to God’s Law, so that God’s wrath may not come on the king’s empire and his family.
22 Also no foreign tax or any other fine should be placed on any of the priests, Levites, temple singers, gatekeepers, temple servants, or people working on this temple. No one has authority to impose anything on them.