You alone are the Lord. You have made the heavens, The heaven of heavens with all their lights, The earth and everything that is on it, The seas and everything that is in them. You give life to all of them, And the heavenly lights bow down before You.

Then 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 You made a name for Yourself as it is this day.

You 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.

“Now then, our God, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who keeps His covenant and faithfulness, Do not let all the hardship seem insignificant before You, Which has happened to us, our kings, our leaders, our priests, our prophets, our fathers, and to all Your people, From the days of the kings of Assyria to this day.

A Covenant Results

“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.”

Obligations of the Document

Now the rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, the temple servants, 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, all those who had knowledge and understanding,

are joining with their kinsmen, their nobles, and are taking on themselves a curse and an oath to walk in God’s Law, which was given through Moses, God’s servant, and to keep and to comply with all the commandments of God our Lord, and His ordinances and statutes;

for the showbread, for the continual grain offering, for the continual burnt offering, the Sabbaths, the new moons, for the appointed times, for the holy things, and for the sin offerings to make atonement for Israel, and all the work of the house of our God.

and so that they could bring the first fruits of our ground and the first fruits of all the fruit of every tree to the house of the Lord annually,

We will also bring the first of our dough, our contributions, the fruit of every tree, the new wine, and the oil to the priests at the chambers of the house of our God, and the tithe of our ground to the Levites, for the Levites are they who receive the tithes in all the rural towns.

And the people blessed all the men who volunteered to live in Jerusalem.

All the sons of Perez who lived in Jerusalem were 468 able men.

All the Levites in the holy city were 284.

Outside Jerusalem

The rest of Israel, of the priests and of the Levites, were in all the cities of Judah, each on his own inheritance.

Dedication of the Wall

Now at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem they sought out the Levites from all their places, to bring them to Jerusalem so that they could celebrate the dedication with joy, with songs of thanksgiving and with songs to the accompaniment of cymbals, harps, and lyres.

So all Israel in the days of Zerubbabel and Nehemiah gave the portions due the singers and the gatekeepers as each day required, and they set apart the consecrated portion for the Levites, and the Levites set apart the consecrated portion for the sons of Aaron.

So when they heard the Law, they excluded all foreigners from Israel.

But during all this time I was not in Jerusalem, for in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I had come to the king. After some time, however, I requested a leave of absence from the king,

It was very displeasing to me, so I threw all of Tobiah’s household articles out of the room.

All Judah then brought the tithe of the grain, wine, and oil into the storehouses.

Also people of Tyre were living there who imported fish and all kinds of merchandise, and sold them to the sons of Judah on the Sabbath, even in Jerusalem.

Did your fathers not do the same, so that our God brought on us and on this city all this trouble? Yet you are adding to the wrath against Israel by profaning the Sabbath.”

Did Solomon the king of Israel not sin regarding these things? Yet among the many nations there was no king like him, and he was loved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel; yet the foreign women caused even him to sin.

Has it not then been reported about you that you have committed all this great evil by acting unfaithfully against our God, by marrying foreign women?”