The People Confess Their Sin

1Now on the twenty-fourth day of this month the sons of Israel assembled with fasting, in sackcloth and with dirt upon them. 2The descendants of Israel separated themselves from all foreigners, and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. 3While they stood in their place, they read from the book of the law of the Lord their God for a fourth of the day; and for another fourth they confessed and worshiped the Lord their God. 4Now on the Levites’ platform stood Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani and Chenani, and they cried with a loud voice to the Lord their God.

5Then the Levites, Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah and Pethahiah, said, “Arise, bless the Lord your God forever and ever!

O may Your glorious name be blessed

And exalted above all blessing and praise!

6You alone are the Lord.

You have made the heavens,

The heaven of heavens with all their host,

The earth and all that is on it,

The seas and all that is in them.

You give life to all of them

And the heavenly host bows down before You.

7You are the Lord God,

Who chose Abram

And brought him out from Ur of the Chaldees,

And gave him the name Abraham.

8You found his heart faithful before You,

And made a covenant with him

To give him the land of the Canaanite,

Of the Hittite and the Amorite,

Of the Perizzite, the Jebusite and the Girgashite—

To give it to his descendants.

And You have fulfilled Your promise,

For You are righteous.

9“You saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt,

And heard their cry by the Red Sea.

10Then You performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh,

Against all his servants and all the people of his land;

For You knew that they acted arrogantly toward them,

And made a name for Yourself as it is this day.

11You divided the sea before them,

So they passed through the midst of the sea on dry ground;

And their pursuers You hurled into the depths,

Like a stone into raging waters.

12And with a pillar of cloud You led them by day,

And with a pillar of fire by night

To light for them the way

In which they were to go.

13Then You came down on Mount Sinai,

And spoke with them from heaven;

You gave them just ordinances and true laws,

Good statutes and commandments.

14So You made known to them Your holy sabbath,

And laid down for them commandments, statutes and law,

Through Your servant Moses.

15You provided bread from heaven for them for their hunger,

You brought forth water from a rock for them for their thirst,

And You told them to enter in order to possess

The land which You swore to give them.

16“But they, our fathers, acted arrogantly;

They became stubborn and would not listen to Your commandments.

17They refused to listen,

And did not remember Your wondrous deeds which You had performed among them;

So they became stubborn and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt.

But You are a God of forgiveness,

Gracious and compassionate,

Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness;

And You did not forsake them.

18Even when they made for themselves

A calf of molten metal

And said, ‘This is your God

Who brought you up from Egypt,’

And committed great blasphemies,

19You, in Your great compassion,

Did not forsake them in the wilderness;

The pillar of cloud did not leave them by day,

To guide them on their way,

Nor the pillar of fire by night, to light for them the way in which they were to go.

20You gave Your good Spirit to instruct them,

Your manna You did not withhold from their mouth,

And You gave them water for their thirst.

21Indeed, forty years You provided for them in the wilderness and they were not in want;

Their clothes did not wear out, nor did their feet swell.

22You also gave them kingdoms and peoples,

And allotted them to them as a boundary.

They took possession of the land of Sihon the king of Heshbon

And the land of Og the king of Bashan.

23You made their sons numerous as the stars of heaven,

And You brought them into the land

Which You had told their fathers to enter and possess.

24So their sons entered and possessed the land.

And You subdued before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites,

And You gave them into their hand, with their kings and the peoples of the land,

To do with them as they desired.

25They captured fortified cities and a fertile land.

They took possession of houses full of every good thing,

Hewn cisterns, vineyards, olive groves,

Fruit trees in abundance.

So they ate, were filled and grew fat,

And reveled in Your great goodness.

26“But they became disobedient and rebelled against You,

And cast Your law behind their backs

And killed Your prophets who had admonished them

So that they might return to You,

And they committed great blasphemies.

27Therefore You delivered them into the hand of their oppressors who oppressed them,

But when they cried to You in the time of their distress,

You heard from heaven, and according to Your great compassion

You gave them deliverers who delivered them from the hand of their oppressors.

28But as soon as they had rest, they did evil again before You;

Therefore You abandoned them to the hand of their enemies, so that they ruled over them.

When they cried again to You, You heard from heaven,

And many times You rescued them according to Your compassion,

29And admonished them in order to turn them back to Your law.

Yet they acted arrogantly and did not listen to Your commandments but sinned against Your ordinances,

By which if a man observes them he shall live.

And they turned a stubborn shoulder and stiffened their neck, and would not listen.

30However, You bore with them for many years,

And admonished them by Your Spirit through Your prophets,

Yet they would not give ear.

Therefore You gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands.

31Nevertheless, in Your great compassion You did not make an end of them or forsake them,

For You are a gracious and compassionate God.

32“Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who keeps covenant and lovingkindness,

Do not let all the hardship seem insignificant before You,

Which has come upon us, our kings, our princes, our priests, our prophets, our fathers and on all Your people,

From the days of the kings of Assyria to this day.

33However, You are just in all that has come upon us;

For You have dealt faithfully, but we have acted wickedly.

34For our kings, our leaders, our priests and our fathers have not kept Your law

Or paid attention to Your commandments and Your admonitions with which You have admonished them.

35But they, in their own kingdom,

With Your great goodness which You gave them,

With the broad and rich land which You set before them,

Did not serve You or turn from their evil deeds.

36Behold, we are slaves today,

And as to the land which You gave to our fathers to eat of its fruit and its bounty,

Behold, we are slaves in it.

37Its abundant produce is for the kings

Whom You have set over us because of our sins;

They also rule over our bodies

And over our cattle as they please,

So we are in great distress.

A Covenant Results

38“Now because of all this

We are making an agreement in writing;

And on the sealed document are the names of our leaders, our Levites and our priests.”

26For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 27For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.

1) How does Nehemiah recall Abraham’s covenant faithfulness in Israel’s story?

2) How does Paul declare that those in Messiah are Abraham’s seed?

3) What does this mean for unity in the body of Messiah?

Jehoram Succeeds Jehoshaphat in Judah

1Then Jehoshaphat slept with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David, and Jehoram his son became king in his place. 2He had brothers, the sons of Jehoshaphat: Azariah, Jehiel, Zechariah, Azaryahu, Michael and Shephatiah. All these were the sons of Jehoshaphat king of Israel. 3Their father gave them many gifts of silver, gold and precious things, with fortified cities in Judah, but he gave the kingdom to Jehoram because he was the firstborn.

4Now when Jehoram had taken over the kingdom of his father and made himself secure, he killed all his brothers with the sword, and some of the rulers of Israel also. 5Jehoram was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem. 6He walked in the way of the kings of Israel, just as the house of Ahab did (for Ahab’s daughter was his wife), and he did evil in the sight of the Lord. 7Yet the Lord was not willing to destroy the house of David because of the covenant which He had made with David, and since He had promised to give a lamp to him and his sons forever.

Revolt against Judah

8In his days Edom revolted against the rule of Judah and set up a king over themselves. 9Then Jehoram crossed over with his commanders and all his chariots with him. And he arose by night and struck down the Edomites who were surrounding him and the commanders of the chariots. 10So Edom revolted against Judah to this day. Then Libnah revolted at the same time against his rule, because he had forsaken the Lord God of his fathers. 11Moreover, he made high places in the mountains of Judah, and caused the inhabitants of Jerusalem to play the harlot and led Judah astray.

12Then a letter came to him from Elijah the prophet saying, “Thus says the Lord God of your father David, ‘Because you have not walked in the ways of Jehoshaphat your father and the ways of Asa king of Judah, 13but have walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and have caused Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to play the harlot as the house of Ahab played the harlot, and you have also killed your brothers, your own family, who were better than you, 14behold, the Lord is going to strike your people, your sons, your wives and all your possessions with a great calamity; 15and you will suffer severe sickness, a disease of your bowels, until your bowels come out because of the sickness, day by day.’ ”

16Then the Lord stirred up against Jehoram the spirit of the Philistines and the Arabs who bordered the Ethiopians; 17and they came against Judah and invaded it, and carried away all the possessions found in the king’s house together with his sons and his wives, so that no son was left to him except Jehoahaz, the youngest of his sons.

18So after all this the Lord smote him in his bowels with an incurable sickness. 19Now it came about in the course of time, at the end of two years, that his bowels came out because of his sickness and he died in great pain. And his people made no fire for him like the fire for his fathers. 20He was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years; and he departed with no one’s regret, and they buried him in the city of David, but not in the tombs of the kings.

Foreigners Excluded

1On that day they read aloud from the book of Moses in the hearing of the people; and there was found written in it that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God, 2because they did not meet the sons of Israel with bread and water, but hired Balaam against them to curse them. However, our God turned the curse into a blessing. 3So when they heard the law, they excluded all foreigners from Israel.

Tobiah Expelled and the Temple Cleansed

4Now prior to this, Eliashib the priest, who was appointed over the chambers of the house of our God, being related to Tobiah, 5had prepared a large room for him, where formerly they put the grain offerings, the frankincense, the utensils and the tithes of grain, wine and oil prescribed for the Levites, the singers and the gatekeepers, and the contributions for the priests. 6But during all this time I was not in Jerusalem, for in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I had gone to the king. After some time, however, I asked leave from the king, 7and I came to Jerusalem and learned about the evil that Eliashib had done for Tobiah, by preparing a room for him in the courts of the house of God. 8It was very displeasing to me, so I threw all of Tobiah’s household goods out of the room. 9Then I gave an order and they cleansed the rooms; and I returned there the utensils of the house of God with the grain offerings and the frankincense.

Tithes Restored

10I also discovered that the portions of the Levites had not been given them, so that the Levites and the singers who performed the service had gone away, each to his own field.

Woe to Jerusalem and the Nations

1Woe to her who is rebellious and defiled,

The tyrannical city!

2She heeded no voice,

She accepted no instruction.

She did not trust in the Lord,

She did not draw near to her God.

3Her princes within her are roaring lions,

Her judges are wolves at evening;

They leave nothing for the morning.

4Her prophets are reckless, treacherous men;

Her priests have profaned the sanctuary.

They have done violence to the law.

5The Lord is righteous within her;

He will do no injustice.

Every morning He brings His justice to light;

He does not fail.

But the unjust knows no shame.

6“I have cut off nations;

Their corner towers are in ruins.

I have made their streets desolate,

With no one passing by;

Their cities are laid waste,

Without a man, without an inhabitant.

7I said, ‘Surely you will revere Me,

Accept instruction.’

So her dwelling will not be cut off

According to all that I have appointed concerning her.

But they were eager to corrupt all their deeds.

8“Therefore wait for Me,” declares the Lord,

“For the day when I rise up as a witness.

Indeed, My decision is to gather nations,

To assemble kingdoms,

To pour out on them My indignation,

All My burning anger;

For all the earth will be devoured

By the fire of My zeal.

9For then I will give to the peoples purified lips,

That all of them may call on the name of the Lord,

To serve Him shoulder to shoulder.

10From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia

My worshipers, My dispersed ones,

Will bring My offerings.

11In that day you will feel no shame

Because of all your deeds

By which you have rebelled against Me;

For then I will remove from your midst

Your proud, exulting ones,

And you will never again be haughty

On My holy mountain.

A Remnant of Israel

12But I will leave among you

A humble and lowly people,

And they will take refuge in the name of the Lord.

13The remnant of Israel will do no wrong

And tell no lies,

Nor will a deceitful tongue

Be found in their mouths;

For they will feed and lie down

With no one to make them tremble.”

14Shout for joy, O daughter of Zion!

Shout in triumph, O Israel!

Rejoice and exult with all your heart,

O daughter of Jerusalem!

15The Lord has taken away His judgments against you,

He has cleared away your enemies.

The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst;

You will fear disaster no more.

16In that day it will be said to Jerusalem:

“Do not be afraid, O Zion;

Do not let your hands fall limp.

17The Lord your God is in your midst,

A victorious warrior.

He will exult over you with joy,

He will be quiet in His love,

He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.

18I will gather those who grieve about the appointed feasts—

They came from you, O Zion;

The reproach of exile is a burden on them.

19Behold, I am going to deal at that time

With all your oppressors,

I will save the lame

And gather the outcast,

And I will turn their shame into praise and renown

In all the earth.

20At that time I will bring you in,

Even at the time when I gather you together;

Indeed, I will give you renown and praise

Among all the peoples of the earth,

When I restore your fortunes before your eyes,”

Says the Lord.