The Daily Audio Bible

²¹ Then I proclaimed a fast there by the River Ahava, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and pray that he would grant a successful journey for ourselves, our children, and all our possessions. ²² For I was ashamed to ask the king for foot soldiers and cavalry to protect us from enemies along the way, inasmuch as we had said to the king: “The hand of our God is upon all who seek his protection, but his fierce wrath is against all who forsake him.” ²³ Therefore, we fasted and prayed to God to grant us a safe journey, and he answered our prayer.

²⁴ Then I selected twelve of the leading priests, together with Sherebiah and Hashabiah and ten of their kinsmen. ²⁵ I weighed out in their presence the silver, the gold, and the utensils, the contributions which the king, his advisors, his officials, and all the Israelites present there had offered for the house of our God.

²⁶ I weighed out and handed over to them six hundred and fifty talents^[a] of silver, one hundred silver vessels weighing two talents, one hundred talents of gold, ²⁷ twenty gold bowls worth one thousand darics, and two superb vessels of polished bronze, as precious as gold.

²⁸ Then I said to them: “You are consecrated to the Lord, as are the utensils. The silver and the gold are a free-will offering to the Lord, the God of your fathers. ²⁹ Guard them carefully until you weigh them out to the leading priests, the Levites, and the heads of the families of Israel in Jerusalem within the chambers of the house of the Lord.” ³⁰ The priests and the Levites then took charge of the silver, the gold, and the sacred articles that had been weighed out to be taken to the house of our God in Jerusalem.

³¹ On the twelfth day of the first month we set forth from the Ahava Canal to make our journey to Jerusalem. The hand of God remained to protect us from our enemies and bandits along the way. ³² When we arrived in Jerusalem, we rested for three days.

³³ On the fourth day, the silver, the gold, and the vessels were weighed in the house of God and presented to the priest Meremoth, the son of Uriah, who was accompanied by Eleazar, the son of Phinehas and the Levites Jozabad, the son of Jeshua, and Noadiah, the son of Binnui. ³⁴ Everything was counted and weighed, and the total weight was recorded at that time.

³⁵ After that, those who had returned from their captivity presented burnt offerings to the God of Israel: twelve bulls for all Israel, ninety-six rams, seventy-two lambs, and, as a sin offering, twelve male goats. All these were presented as a holocaust to the Lord. ³⁶ They also delivered the king’s instructions to the royal satraps and to the governors in West-of-Euphrates who then pledged their support to the people and the house of God.

Chapter 9

Denunciation of Mixed Marriages. ¹ After these matters had been concluded, the leaders approached me and said: “The people of Israel, including the priests and the Levites, have not kept themselves separated from the neighboring peoples with their abominable practices—the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. ² They have taken women of these nations as wives for themselves and their sons, and as a result, they have contaminated the holy race by such unions. In this regard the leaders and the magistrates have been the major offenders.”

Ezra’s Exhortation. ³ Upon hearing this news, I tore my tunic and cloak, after which I plucked hair from my beard and my head and sat down in a complete stupor until the evening sacrifice. ⁴ Then all those who trembled with fear at the words of the God of Israel gathered around me, while I sat there appalled until the evening sacrifice. ^5 [b]However, at the time of the evening sacrifice, I arose from my stupor, with my cloak and my mantle torn, and I fell to my knees while stretching out my hands to the Lord.

⁶ Then I said: “O my God, I am too ashamed and embarrassed to lift my face to you, my God, because our iniquities have increased until they have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has reached the heavens. ⁷ From the time of our fathers until now our guilt has been great, and because of our iniquities we and our kings and our priests have been handed over into the power of foreign rulers and subjected to the sword, to captivity, to pillage and disgrace, as is the case today.

⁸ “But now, for a brief moment, the Lord, our God has shown mercy to us by allowing a remnant of us to escape and given us a stable home in his sanctuary, thereby bringing light to our eyes and granting us some relief in our bondage. ⁹ For we are slaves, but God has not forgotten us in our state of slavery. He has extended his faithful love to us and turned the good will of the kings of Persia toward us, while granting us new life to rebuild the house of our God, restore its ruins, and provide us with a wall of protection in Judah and Jerusalem.

¹⁰ “But now, our God, what can we say after all this? For we have abandoned your commandments, ¹¹ which you gave through your servants, the prophets, when you said: ‘The land that you are entering to possess is a land polluted by the abominations of the people of the country and their disgusting practices that have filled it with their filth from one end to the other. ¹² Therefore, do not give your daughters in marriage to their sons or let their daughters marry your sons. Nor must you seek peace with them or enhance their prosperity. In this way you will grow strong, enjoy the produce of the land, and leave it as an inheritance to your children forever.’

¹³ “After all that has befallen us for our evil deeds and our great guilt, you, O Lord, have punished us less than our sins have deserved and have allowed us to survive. ¹⁴ Shall we once again disobey your commandments and intermarry with people who engage in these loathsome practices? Would you not be enraged with us to the point that you would destroy us, leaving us with neither remnant nor survivor? ¹⁵ O Lord, God of Israel, you are righteous. We survive only as a remnant. We come here before you in our guilt. Because of this, none of us can stand in your presence.”

Deviant Behavior^[a]

Chapter 5

Reports of Sexual Immorality. ¹ There have been widely circulated reports of sexual immorality among you, immorality of such a nature that not even pagans practice—the union of a man with his father’s wife. ² How can you be proud of yourselves? You should rather have been overcome with grief and expelled from the community anyone who acted in such a manner.

³ I for my part am with you in spirit, even though I am not physically present. I have already passed judgment on the man who did this, as if I were actually present. ⁴ In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you have all assembled together and I am with you in spirit through the power of our Lord Jesus, ⁵ you are to hand over this man to Satan to be destroyed in the flesh, so that on the day of the Lord his spirit may be saved.

⁶ Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a small amount of yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? ^7 [b]Throw out the old yeast so that you may become a fresh batch of unleavened dough. And truly you already are, because Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed. ⁸ Therefore, let us celebrate the feast, not with the old yeast, the yeast of depravity and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

⁹ In my letter, I wrote to you not to associate with people who are leading immoral lives.^{[c] 10} Obviously, I was not referring to contact with people in the world who are immoral or with those who are greedy or thieves or worshipers of false gods, since to do this you would have to leave the world. ¹¹ What I really meant to get across was that you should not associate with any brother or sister who is sexually immoral, greedy, an idolater, a slanderer, a drunkard or a robber. You should not even eat with such a person.

¹² It is no concern of mine to judge those who are outside the fold.^[d] It is your responsibility to judge those who are inside. ¹³ God will pass judgment on the outsiders. Banish the evil person from your midst.

Psalm 31^[a]

Prayer of Trust and Thanksgiving

¹ For the director.^[b] A psalm of David.

Chapter 21

The Lord Weighs the Heart^[a]