Priests and Levites in Jerusalem

9 So ^(A)all Israel was ^[a]recorded by genealogies, and indeed, they were inscribed in the book of the kings of Israel. But Judah was carried away captive to Babylon because of their unfaithfulness. ^2 (B)And the first inhabitants who dwelt in their possessions in their cities were Israelites, priests, Levites, and ^(C)the Nethinim.

Dwellers in Jerusalem

³ Now in ^(D)Jerusalem the children of Judah dwelt, and some of the children of Benjamin, and of the children of Ephraim and Manasseh:

¹⁴ For the Levites left ^(A)their common-lands and their possessions and came to Judah and Jerusalem, for ^(B)Jeroboam and his sons had rejected them from serving as priests to the Lord. ^15 (C)Then he appointed for himself priests for the ^[a]high places, for ^(D)the demons, and ^(E)the calf idols which he had made. ^16 (F)And ^[b]after the Levites left, those from all the tribes of Israel, such as set their heart to seek the Lord God of Israel, ^(G)came to Jerusalem to sacrifice to the Lord God of their fathers.

⁸ And when Asa heard these words and the prophecy of ^[a]Oded the prophet, he took courage, and removed the abominable idols from all the land of Judah and Benjamin and from the cities ^(A)which he had taken in the mountains of Ephraim; and he restored the altar of the Lord that was before the vestibule of the Lord. ⁹ Then he gathered all Judah and Benjamin, and ^(B)those who dwelt with them from Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon, for they came over to him in great numbers from Israel when they saw that the Lord his God was with him.

²⁵ The whole assembly of Judah rejoiced, also the priests and Levites, all the assembly that came from Israel, the sojourners ^(A)who came from the land of Israel, and those who dwelt in Judah.

⁶ And the children of Israel and Judah, who dwelt in the cities of Judah, brought the tithe of oxen and sheep; also the ^(A)tithe of holy things which were consecrated to the Lord their God they laid in heaps.