Commitments of the Covenant

²⁸ The rest of the people, the priests, the descendants of Levi, the gatekeepers, the singers, the Temple Servants, and everyone who had separated themselves from the peoples of the surrounding^[a] lands for the Law of God—their wives, their sons, their daughters, and all who had knowledge and understanding— ²⁹ joined with their relatives and their leaders. They entered into an oath—enforced by a curse^[b]—to walk in God’s Law that was given through God’s servant Moses, and to be careful to obey all of the commands of the Lord, our Lord, as well as his regulations and statutes: ³⁰ “We will not give our daughters in marriage^[c] to the people of the land, nor take their daughters for our sons. ³¹ As for the people of the land who bring merchandise or grain to sell on the Sabbath day, we will not buy from them on the Sabbath or on any holy day. We will forego planting crops, and we will cancel debts during every seventh year.”

Commitments for Temple Service

³² We also obligated ourselves to contribute annually a third of a shekel^[d] for services relating to the Temple of our God— ³³ for the bread set out on the table,^[e] for the daily grain offering, for the continual burnt offering, for the Sabbath offerings, for the New Moon festivals, for the appointed festivals, for the holy offerings, for the sin offerings to make atonement for Israel, and for all the service of the Temple of our God.

³⁴ We—the priests, the descendants of Levi, and the people—cast lots to determine when to bring the wood offering into the Temple of our God, just as our ancestors’ families were appointed annually to maintain the altar fire of the Lord our God, as recorded in the Law. ³⁵ We also cast lots to determine when^[f] to bring the first fruits of our land and the annual first fruits of all fruit of every tree to the Temple of the Lord, ³⁶ as well as the firstborn of our sons and our cattle, as recorded in the Law, along with the firstlings of our herds and our flocks, to present to the Temple of our God for the priests that minister in the Temple of our God. ³⁷ We also determined^[g] to present the first fruits of our ground grain, our offerings, the fruit of all kinds of trees, wines, and oil to the priests, to the chambers of the Temple of our God, and the tithes of our land to the descendants of Levi, so those descendants of Levi could collect the tithes in all the towns where we worked: ³⁸ “And the priest, the descendant of Aaron, will be with the descendants of Levi when the descendants of Levi receive tithes, and the descendants of Levi will bring the tithe of the tithes into the store rooms of the Temple of our God. ³⁹ For the Israelis and the descendants of Levi will bring the grain offering, the wine, and the oil into the chambers where the vessels of the sanctuary are, along with the ministering priests, the porters, and the singers. We will not neglect the Temple of our God.”