The People Who Sealed the Covenant

10 Now those who placed their seal on the document were:

Nehemiah the ^[a]governor, ^(A)the son of Hacaliah, and Zedekiah, ^2 (B)Seraiah, Azariah, Jeremiah, ³ Pashhur, Amariah, Malchijah, ⁴ Hattush, Shebaniah, Malluch, ⁵ Harim, Meremoth, Obadiah, ⁶ Daniel, Ginnethon, Baruch, ⁷ Meshullam, Abijah, Mijamin, ⁸ Maaziah, Bilgai, and Shemaiah. These were the priests.

⁹ The Levites: Jeshua the son of Azaniah, Binnui of the sons of Henadad, and Kadmiel.

¹⁰ Their brethren: Shebaniah, Hodijah, Kelita, Pelaiah, Hanan, ¹¹ Micha, Rehob, Hashabiah, ¹² Zaccur, Sherebiah, Shebaniah, ¹³ Hodijah, Bani, and Beninu.

¹⁴ The leaders of the people: ^(C)Parosh, Pahath-Moab, Elam, Zattu, Bani, ¹⁵ Bunni, Azgad, Bebai, ¹⁶ Adonijah, Bigvai, Adin, ¹⁷ Ater, Hezekiah, Azzur, ¹⁸ Hodijah, Hashum, Bezai, ¹⁹ Hariph, Anathoth, Nebai, ²⁰ Magpiash, Meshullam, Hezir, ²¹ Meshezabel, Zadok, Jaddua, ²² Pelatiah, Hanan, Anaiah, ²³ Hoshea, Hananiah, Hasshub, ²⁴ Hallohesh, Pilha, Shobek, ²⁵ Rehum, Hashabnah, Maaseiah, ²⁶ Ahijah, Hanan, Anan, ²⁷ Malluch, Harim, and Baanah.

The Covenant That Was Sealed

^28 (D)Now the rest of the people—the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, the Nethinim, ^(E)and all those who had separated themselves from the peoples of the lands to the Law of God, their wives, their sons, and their daughters, everyone who had knowledge and understanding— ²⁹ these joined with their brethren, their nobles, ^(F)and entered into a curse and an oath ^(G)to walk in God’s Law, which was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the Lord our Lord, and His ordinances and His statutes:

⁸ Now Cain ^[a]talked with Abel his ^[b]brother; and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and ^(A)killed him.

⁹ Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?”

He said, ^(B)“I do not know. Am I ^(C)my brother’s keeper?”

¹⁰ And He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood ^(D)cries out to Me from the ground. ¹¹ So now ^(E)you are cursed from the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. ¹² When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. A fugitive and a vagabond you shall be on the earth.”

¹³ And Cain said to the Lord, “My ^[c]punishment is greater than I can bear! ¹⁴ Surely You have driven me out this day from the face of the ground; ^(F)I shall be ^(G)hidden from Your face; I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth, and it will happen that ^(H)anyone who finds me will kill me.”

¹⁵ And the Lord said to him, ^[d]“Therefore, whoever kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him ^(I)sevenfold.” And the Lord set a ^(J)mark on Cain, lest anyone finding him should kill him.

The Family of Cain

¹⁶ Then Cain ^(K)went out from the ^(L)presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of ^[e]Nod on the east of Eden. ¹⁷ And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. And he built a city, ^(M)and called the name of the city after the name of his son—Enoch. ¹⁸ To Enoch was born Irad; and Irad begot Mehujael, and Mehujael begot Methushael, and Methushael begot Lamech.

¹⁹ Then Lamech took for himself ^(N)two wives: the name of one was Adah, and the name of the second was Zillah.

Benediction, Final Exhortation, Farewell

²⁰ Now may ^(A)the God of peace ^(B)who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, ^(C)that great Shepherd of the sheep, ^(D)through the blood of the everlasting covenant,

The Covenant at Shechem^(A)

24 Then Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to ^(B)Shechem and ^(C)called for the elders of Israel, for their heads, for their judges, and for their officers; and they ^(D)presented themselves before God. ² And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ^(E)‘Your fathers, including Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, dwelt on the other side of ^[a]the River in old times; and ^(F)they served other gods. ^3 (G)Then I took your father Abraham from the other side of ^[b]the River, led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his ^[c]descendants and ^(H)gave him Isaac. ⁴ To Isaac I gave ^(I)Jacob and Esau. To ^(J)Esau I gave the mountains of Seir to possess, ^(K)but Jacob and his children went down to Egypt. ^5 (L)Also I sent Moses and Aaron, and ^(M)I plagued Egypt, according to what I did among them. Afterward I brought you out.

⁶ ‘Then I ^(N)brought your fathers out of Egypt, and you came to the sea; and the Egyptians pursued your fathers with chariots and horsemen to the Red Sea. ⁷ So they cried out to the Lord; and He put ^(O)darkness between you and the Egyptians, brought the sea upon them, and covered them. And ^(P)your eyes saw what I did in Egypt. Then you dwelt in the wilderness ^(Q)a long time. ⁸ And I brought you into the land of the Amorites, who dwelt on the other side of the Jordan, ^(R)and they fought with you. But I gave them into your hand, that you might possess their land, and I destroyed them from before you. ⁹ Then ^(S)Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, arose to make war against Israel, and ^(T)sent and called Balaam the son of Beor to curse you. ^10 (U)But I would not listen to Balaam; ^(V)therefore he continued to bless you. So I delivered you out of his hand. ¹¹ Then ^(W)you went over the Jordan and came to Jericho. And ^(X)the men of Jericho fought against you—also the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. But I delivered them into your hand. ^12 (Y)I sent the hornet before you which drove them out from before you, also the two kings of the Amorites, but ^(Z)not with your sword or with your bow. ¹³ I have given you a land for which you did not labor, and ^(AA)cities which you did not build, and you dwell in them; you eat of the vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant.’

^14 (AB)“Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in ^(AC)sincerity and in truth, and ^(AD)put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of ^[d]the River and ^(AE)in Egypt. Serve the Lord! ¹⁵ And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, ^(AF)choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether ^(AG)the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of ^[e]the River, or ^(AH)the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. ^(AI)But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

¹⁶ So the people answered and said: “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods; ¹⁷ for the Lord our God is He who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, who did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way that we went and among all the people through whom we passed. ¹⁸ And the Lord drove out from before us all the people, including the Amorites who dwelt in the land. ^(AJ)We also will serve the Lord, for He is our God.”

¹⁹ But Joshua said to the people, ^(AK)“You cannot serve the Lord, for He is a ^(AL)holy God. He is ^(AM)a jealous God; ^(AN)He will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. ^20 (AO)If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, ^(AP)then He will turn and do you harm and consume you, after He has done you good.”

²¹ And the people said to Joshua, “No, but we will serve the Lord!”

²² So Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that ^(AQ)you have chosen the Lord for yourselves, to serve Him.”

And they said, “We are witnesses!”

²³ “Now therefore,” he said, ^(AR)“put away the foreign gods which are among you, and ^(AS)incline your heart to the Lord God of Israel.”

²⁴ And the people ^(AT)said to Joshua, “The Lord our God we will serve, and His voice we will obey!”

²⁵ So Joshua ^(AU)made^[f] a covenant with the people that day, and made for them a statute and an ordinance ^(AV)in Shechem.

²⁶ Then Joshua ^(AW)wrote these words in the Book of the Law of God. And he took ^(AX)a large stone, and ^(AY)set it up there ^(AZ)under the oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord. ²⁷ And Joshua said to all the people, “Behold, this stone shall be ^(BA)a witness to us, for ^(BB)it has heard all the words of the Lord which He spoke to us. It shall therefore be a witness to you, lest you deny your God.” ²⁸ So ^(BC)Joshua let the people depart, each to his own inheritance.

Death of Joshua and Eleazar

^29 (BD)Now it came to pass after these things that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being one hundred and ten years old. ³⁰ And they buried him within the border of his inheritance at ^(BE)Timnath Serah, which is in the mountains of Ephraim, on the north side of Mount Gaash.

^31 (BF)Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had ^(BG)known all the works of the Lord which He had done for Israel.

^32 (BH)The bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel had brought up out of Egypt, they buried at Shechem, in the plot of ground ^(BI)which Jacob had bought from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for one hundred ^[g]pieces of silver, and which had become an inheritance of the children of Joseph.

³³ And ^(BJ)Eleazar the son of Aaron died. They buried him in a hill belonging to ^(BK)Phinehas his son, which was given to him in the mountains of Ephraim.

³⁰ We would not give ^(A)our daughters as wives to the peoples of the land, nor take their daughters for our sons; ^31 (B)if the peoples of the land brought ^[a]wares or any grain to sell on the Sabbath day, we would not buy it from them on the Sabbath, or on a holy day; and we would forego the ^(C)seventh year’s produce and the ^(D)exacting^[b] of every debt.

³² Also we made ordinances for ourselves, to exact from ourselves yearly ^(E)one-third of a shekel for the service of the house of our God: ³³ for ^(F)the showbread, for the regular grain offering, for the ^(G)regular burnt offering of the Sabbaths, the New Moons, and the set feasts; for the holy things, for the sin offerings to make atonement for Israel, and all the work of the house of our God. ³⁴ We cast lots among the priests, the Levites, and the people, ^(H)for bringing the wood offering into the house of our God, according to our fathers’ houses, at the appointed times year by year, to burn on the altar of the Lord our God ^(I)as it is written in the Law.

³⁵ And we made ordinances ^(J)to bring the firstfruits of our ground and the firstfruits of all fruit of all trees, year by year, to the house of the Lord; ³⁶ to bring the ^(K)firstborn of our sons and our cattle, as it is written in the Law, and the firstborn of our herds and our flocks, to the house of our God, to the priests who minister in the house of our God; ^37 (L)to bring the firstfruits of our dough, our offerings, the fruit from all kinds of trees, the new wine and oil, to the priests, to the storerooms of the ^[c]house of our God; and to bring ^(M)the tithes of our land to the Levites, for the Levites should receive the tithes in all our farming communities. ³⁸ And the priest, the descendant of Aaron, shall be with the Levites ^(N)when the Levites receive tithes; and the Levites shall bring up a tenth of the tithes to the house of our God, to ^(O)the rooms of the storehouse.

³⁹ For the children of Israel and the children of Levi ^(P)shall bring the offering of the grain, of the new wine and the oil, to the storerooms where the articles of the sanctuary are, where the priests who minister and the gatekeepers ^(Q)and the singers are; and we will not ^(R)neglect the house of our God.

The New Priestly Service

8 Now this is the main point of the things we are saying: We have such a High Priest, ^(A)who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, ² a Minister of ^(B)the ^[a]sanctuary and of ^(C)the true tabernacle which the Lord erected, and not man.

³ For ^(D)every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices. Therefore ^(E)it is necessary that this One also have something to offer. ⁴ For if He were on earth, He would not be a priest, since there are priests who offer the gifts according to the law; ⁵ who serve ^(F)the copy and ^(G)shadow of the heavenly things, as Moses was divinely instructed when he was about to make the tabernacle. For He said, ^(H)“See that you make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.” ⁶ But now ^(I)He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a ^(J)better covenant, which was established on better promises.

A New Covenant^(K)

⁷ For if that ^(L)first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second.