Old Testament: Ezra 1.5

To read the Bible in a year, read Ezra 1–2 on June 12, In the year of our Lord Christ 2024

By Don Ruhl 

The seventy years of Babylonian captivity ended, and Cyrus, king of Persia, allowed the Jews to return to their homeland: “Then the heads of the fathers’ houses of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and the Levites, with all whose spirits God had moved, arose to go up and build the house of the LORD which is in Jerusalem” (Ezra 1.5). 

When God stirred up their spirits, they did wonderful things, in this case, making the long trip to Jerusalem and rebuilding the house of the Lord. 

Has God stirred your spirit? Have you meditated in his word and seen what he wants you to do? Have you worshiped him and been moved by the whole experience? Do like these men did and rise up and do what needs to be done! 

Questions from today’s reading and devotional: 

• In what year of King Cyrus’s reign did he let the Jews go free? 
• Why were some excluded from the priesthood? 

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Don preaches with the Savage Street Church of Christ in Grants Pass, Oregon. 

Listen to his sermons here: GrantsPassChurchOfChrist.com