It is written:  

  "Every survivor, at whatever place he may live, let the men of that place support him with silver and gold, with goods and cattle, together with a freewill offering for the house of God which is in Jerusalem...

     Also King Cyrus brought out the articles of the house of the Lord, which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and put in the house of his gods."

Is this a quaint ethnic legend? No, despite the reference to "God,"who has since been discredited, it's real history. Almost 2600 years ago, a Persian king released a band of political captives--42,360 of them-- to return to the land of their ancestors. The benevolent monarch, Cyrus,  enabled the return of Jewish captives to their holy city; he sent them back there with a plenteous store of precious heirlooms and sacred artifacts that had been absconded by the Babylonian  king Nebuchadnezzar seventy years earlier.

If this were a headline today it might read something like this:

Iranian Ayatollah releases Israeli expats to be transported back to Palestine.

Former Iraqi dictator's plunder returns with them.

Not  very likely, eh? Would this headline be more realistic?:

Iranian Ayatollah releases warhead on Israeli capital.

Iraqis complain of fallout.

God forbid. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

Anyway, a little later on back in the day, the returnees got organized on their home turf: "So they set up the altar on its foundation, for they were terrified because of the peoples of the lands; and they offered burnt offerings on it to the Lord..."

If this were a modern event, the report might read something like this:  So they set up numerous fortified kibbutzim and settlements, because they feared for their lives, and they built a social democracy...

Now it came to pass, back in Ezra's day, that after they had built a temple   . . . "the old men who had seen the first temple wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, while many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the shout of joy from the sound of the weeping of the people..."

And if similar events were to arise today, the report might read something like this: "...the people hardly knew whether to laugh or cry, so torn with angst were they."

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and the peace of Tehran.