The Daily Audio Bible

²¹ Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river of Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from Him a good route for us, our little ones, and all our substance. ²² For I was ashamed to ask the king for an escort of foot and horse soldiers to help us against the enemy on the way, because we had spoken to the king, saying, “The hand of our God is upon all who seek Him for good, but His power and His wrath are against all who forsake Him.” ²³ So we fasted and sought our God for this, and He was moved by our prayers.

Temple Gifts

²⁴ Then I separated twelve of the presiding priests—Sherebiah and Hashabiah, along with ten of their brothers— ²⁵ and weighed out to them the silver, the gold, the vessels, as well as the contribution collected for the house of our God by the king, his counselors, his lords, in conjunction with what all Israel had offered. ²⁶ I weighed out into their hand six hundred and fifty talents^[a] of silver, silver articles worth one hundred talents,^[b] one hundred talents^[c] of gold, ²⁷ twenty gold bowls worth a thousand darics,^[d] and two vessels of fine shining bronze, precious as gold.

²⁸ I said to them, “You are holy to the Lord. The vessels are holy also. The silver and the gold are a freewill offering to the Lord God of your fathers. ²⁹ Watch and guard them until you weigh them before the presiding priests and Levites, and the presiding elders of Israel at Jerusalem, for the chambers of the house of the Lord.” ³⁰ So the priests and the Levites accepted the weighed-out silver and gold, along with the vessels, to bring them to Jerusalem to the house of our God.

The Return to Jerusalem

³¹ Then we began the journey from the Ahava River on the twelfth day of the first month to go to Jerusalem. The hand of our God was upon us, and He delivered us from the hand of the attacker and the ambusher along the way. ³² When we arrived at Jerusalem, we stayed there three days.

³³ Then on the fourth day the silver and the gold and the vessels were weighed out in the house of our God by the hand of Meremoth the son of Uriah the priest. With him was Eleazar the son of Phinehas as well as Jozabad the son of Jeshua, and Noadiah the son of Binnui—both Levites. ³⁴ All of it was counted by number and by weight, and all the information was recorded at that time.

³⁵ Then, the children of the exile who had come out of captivity offered burnt offerings to the God of Israel. On behalf of all Israel, they offered twelve bulls, ninety-six rams, seventy-seven lambs, and twelve male goats as a sin offering. All of it was offered as a burnt offering to the Lord. ³⁶ Finally, they delivered the king’s decrees to the satraps of the king as well as to the governors of the province Beyond the River. Accordingly, they supported the people and the house of God.

Ezra Prays About Intermarriage

9 Now when these things were done, the leaders contacted me, saying, “The people of Israel, the priests, and the Levites have not separated themselves from the people of the lands. They practice the abominations of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. ² Specifically, they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves, as well as for their sons, so that the holy seed has been mingled with the people of the lands. In fact, the involvement of the leaders and rulers has been foremost in this vile behavior.”

³ When I heard this, I tore my clothes and my robe, plucked out the hair of my head and from my beard, and sat down astonished. ⁴ Because of the vile behavior of those who had been in exile, every one that trembled at the words of the God of Israel gathered to me, but I sat astonished until the evening sacrifice.

⁵ At the evening sacrifice I rose up from my heaviness and, despite having my clothes and my robe torn, I knelt on my knees and stretched out my hands in prayer to the Lord my God ⁶ and said:

“O my God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to lift up my face to You, my God, because our iniquities have expanded over our heads and our wrongdoing has grown up to the heavens. ⁷ Since the days of our fathers until this day, we have been in a great guilt. It is because of our iniquities that we, our kings, and our priests have been delivered—by the sword, by captivity, by spoil, and by being shamed—into the hand of the kings of the lands. This day is like that, too.

⁸ “Yet now for a little while, there has been a favorable response from the Lord our God—leaving us a remnant to escape, giving us a tent peg from His holy place, having our eyes enlightened by our God, and giving us a little reviving in our bondage. ⁹ For though we were slaves, our God has not forsaken us in our bondage but has extended mercy to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, granting us a reviving for the rebuilding of the house of our God, for the repairing of its ruins, and for giving us a wall in Judah and in Jerusalem.

¹⁰ “Now, O our God, what shall we say after this? For we have forsaken Your commandments, ¹¹ which You commanded by Your servants the prophets, saying, ‘The land you are going to possess, it is an unclean land with the filthiness of the people of the lands. By their abominations, it is has been filled from one end to another with their uncleanness. ¹² Now, therefore, cease giving your daughters as wives to their sons, do not take their daughters to your sons, and never seek their peace or prosperity, that you might grow strong and eat the good of the land and leave it as an eternal inheritance to your children.’

¹³ “After all that has come upon us because of our evil deeds and our great guilt, seeing that You our God have punished us less than our iniquities deserve and have given us such deliverance as this, ¹⁴ should we again break Your commandments and intermarry with the people of these abominations? Would You not become so completely angry with us that there would be no remnant nor any who escape? ¹⁵ O Lord God of Israel, You are righteous, for we who escaped exile yet remain to this very day. Here we stand before You in our guiltiness even though we should not stand before You because of this.”

Judgment Against Immorality

5 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles, that a man has his father’s wife. ² But you are arrogant. Instead you should have mourned, so that he who has done this deed might be removed from among you. ³ For indeed, though absent in body but present in spirit, I have already, as if I were present, judged him who has done this deed, ⁴ in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. When you are assembled, along with my spirit, in the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, ⁵ deliver him to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord Jesus.

⁶ Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch? ⁷ Therefore purge out the old yeast, that you may be a new batch, since you are unleavened. For even Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed for us. ⁸ Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old yeast, nor with the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

⁹ I wrote to you in my letter not to keep company with sexually immoral people. ¹⁰ Yet I did not mean the sexually immoral people of this world, or the covetous and extortioners, or the idolaters, since you would then need to go out of the world. ¹¹ But I have written to you not to keep company with any man who is called a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner. Do not even eat with such a person.

¹² For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? ¹³ But God judges those who are outside. Therefore “put away from among yourselves that wicked person.”^[a]

Psalm 31^(A)

For the Music Director. A Psalm of David.