The Daily Audio Bible

8 All the people gathered themselves together as one man into the wide place that was in front of the water gate; and they spoke to Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which Yahweh had commanded to Israel. ² Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, both men and women, and all who could hear with understanding, on the first day of the seventh month. ³ He read from it before the wide place that was in front of the water gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women, and of those who could understand. The ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law. ⁴ Ezra the scribe stood on a pulpit of wood, which they had made for the purpose; and beside him stood Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Maaseiah, on his right hand; and on his left hand, Pedaiah, Mishael, Malchijah, Hashum, Hashbaddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam. ⁵ Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people (for he was above all the people), and when he opened it, all the people stood up. ⁶ Then Ezra blessed Yahweh, the great God.

All the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” with the lifting up of their hands. They bowed their heads, and worshiped Yahweh with their faces to the ground. ⁷ Also Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, and the Levites, caused the people to understand the law; and the people stayed in their place. ⁸ They read in the book, in the law of God, distinctly; and they gave the sense, so that they understood the reading.

⁹ Nehemiah, who was the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “Today is holy to Yahweh your God. Don’t mourn, nor weep.” For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. ¹⁰ Then he said to them, “Go your way. Eat the fat, drink the sweet, and send portions to him for whom nothing is prepared, for today is holy to our Lord. Don’t be grieved, for the joy of Yahweh is your strength.”

¹¹ So the Levites calmed all the people, saying, “Hold your peace, for the day is holy. Don’t be grieved.”

¹² All the people went their way to eat, to drink, to send portions, and to celebrate, because they had understood the words that were declared to them.

¹³ On the second day, the heads of fathers’ households of all the people, the priests, and the Levites were gathered together to Ezra the scribe, to study the words of the law. ¹⁴ They found written in the law how Yahweh had commanded by Moses that the children of Israel should dwell in booths in the feast of the seventh month; ¹⁵ and that they should publish and proclaim in all their cities and in Jerusalem, saying, “Go out to the mountain, and get olive branches, branches of wild olive, myrtle branches, palm branches, and branches of thick trees, to make temporary shelters,^[a] as it is written.”

¹⁶ So the people went out and brought them, and made themselves temporary shelters,^[b] everyone on the roof of his house, in their courts, in the courts of God’s house, in the wide place of the water gate, and in the wide place of Ephraim’s gate. ¹⁷ All the assembly of those who had come back out of the captivity made temporary shelters^[c] and lived in the temporary shelters, for since the days of Joshua the son of Nun to that day the children of Israel had not done so. There was very great gladness. ¹⁸ Also day by day, from the first day to the last day, he read in the book of the law of God. They kept the feast seven days; and on the eighth day was a solemn assembly, according to the ordinance.

9 Now in the twenty-fourth day of this month the children of Israel were assembled with fasting, with sackcloth, and dirt on them. ² The offspring of Israel separated themselves from all foreigners and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. ³ They stood up in their place, and read in the book of the law of Yahweh their God a fourth part of the day; and a fourth part they confessed and worshiped Yahweh their God. ⁴ Then Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani of the Levites stood up on the stairs, and cried with a loud voice to Yahweh their God.

⁵ Then the Levites, Jeshua, and Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah, said, “Stand up and bless Yahweh your God from everlasting to everlasting! Blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise! ⁶ You are Yahweh, even you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their army, the earth and all things that are on it, the seas and all that is in them, and you preserve them all. The army of heaven worships you. ⁷ You are Yahweh, the God who chose Abram, brought him out of Ur of the Chaldees, gave him the name of Abraham, ⁸ found his heart faithful before you, and made a covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite, to give it to his offspring, and have performed your words, for you are righteous.

⁹ “You saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, and heard their cry by the Red Sea, ¹⁰ and showed signs and wonders against Pharaoh, against all his servants, and against all the people of his land, for you knew that they dealt proudly against them, and made a name for yourself, as it is today. ¹¹ You divided the sea before them, so that they went through the middle of the sea on the dry land; and you cast their pursuers into the depths, as a stone into the mighty waters. ¹² Moreover, in a pillar of cloud you led them by day; and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light in the way in which they should go.

¹³ “You also came down on Mount Sinai, and spoke with them from heaven, and gave them right ordinances and true laws, good statutes and commandments, ¹⁴ and made known to them your holy Sabbath, and commanded them commandments, statutes, and a law, by Moses your servant, ¹⁵ and gave them bread from the sky for their hunger, and brought water out of the rock for them for their thirst, and commanded them that they should go in to possess the land which you had sworn to give them.

¹⁶ “But they and our fathers behaved proudly, hardened their neck, didn’t listen to your commandments, ¹⁷ and refused to obey. They weren’t mindful of your wonders that you did among them, but hardened their neck, and in their rebellion appointed a captain to return to their bondage. But you are a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, and didn’t forsake them. ¹⁸ Yes, when they had made themselves a molded calf, and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and had committed awful blasphemies, ¹⁹ yet you in your manifold mercies didn’t forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud didn’t depart from over them by day, to lead them in the way; neither did the pillar of fire by night, to show them light, and the way in which they should go. ²⁰ You gave also your good Spirit to instruct them, and didn’t withhold your manna from their mouth, and gave them water for their thirst.

²¹ “Yes, forty years you sustained them in the wilderness. They lacked nothing. Their clothes didn’t grow old, and their feet didn’t swell.

9 Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Haven’t I seen Jesus Christ, our Lord? Aren’t you my work in the Lord? ² If to others I am not an apostle, yet at least I am to you; for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

³ My defense to those who examine me is this: ⁴ Have we no right to eat and to drink? ⁵ Have we no right to take along a wife who is a believer, even as the rest of the apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas? ⁶ Or have only Barnabas and I no right to not work? ⁷ What soldier ever serves at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard, and doesn’t eat of its fruit? Or who feeds a flock, and doesn’t drink from the flock’s milk?

⁸ Do I speak these things according to the ways of men? Or doesn’t the law also say the same thing? ⁹ For it is written in the law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain.”^(A) Is it for the oxen that God cares, ¹⁰ or does he say it assuredly for our sake? Yes, it was written for our sake, because he who plows ought to plow in hope, and he who threshes in hope should partake of his hope. ¹¹ If we sowed to you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we reap your fleshly things? ¹² If others partake of this right over you, don’t we yet more?

Nevertheless we didn’t use this right, but we bear all things, that we may cause no hindrance to the Good News of Christ. ¹³ Don’t you know that those who serve around sacred things eat from the things of the temple, and those who wait on the altar have their portion with the altar? ¹⁴ Even so the Lord ordained that those who proclaim the Good News should live from the Good News.

¹⁵ But I have used none of these things, and I don’t write these things that it may be done so in my case; for I would rather die, than that anyone should make my boasting void. ¹⁶ For if I preach the Good News, I have nothing to boast about, for necessity is laid on me; but woe is to me if I don’t preach the Good News. ¹⁷ For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward. But if not of my own will, I have a stewardship entrusted to me. ¹⁸ What then is my reward? That when I preach the Good News, I may present the Good News of Christ without charge, so as not to abuse my authority in the Good News.