The Decree of Darius

6 King Darius then issued an order, and they searched in the archives^(A) stored in the treasury at Babylon.

¹⁵ For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast.^(A) On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off^(B) from Israel.

Cyrus Helps the Exiles to Return^(A)

1 In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah,^(B) the Lord moved the heart^(C) of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and also to put it in writing:

²⁷ Praise be to the Lord, the God of our ancestors, who has put it into the king’s heart^(A) to bring honor^(B) to the house of the Lord in Jerusalem in this way