The Daily Audio Bible

²¹ Then I declared a fast while we were at the Ahava River so that we would humble ourselves before our God; and we prayed that he would give us a good journey and protect us, our children, and our goods as we traveled. ²² For I was ashamed to ask the king for soldiers and cavalry to accompany us and protect us from the enemies along the way. After all, we had told the king that our God would protect all those who worshiped him, and that disaster could come only to those who had forsaken him! ²³ So we fasted and begged God to take care of us. And he did.

²⁴ I appointed twelve leaders of the priests—Sherebiah, Hashabiah, and ten other priests— ²⁵ to be in charge of transporting the silver, gold, the gold bowls, and the other items that the king and his council and the leaders and people of Israel had presented to the Temple of God. ^26-27 I weighed the money as I gave it to them and found it to total $1,300,000 in silver; $200,000 in silver utensils; many millions in gold; and twenty gold bowls worth a total of $100,000. There were also two beautiful pieces of brass that were as precious as gold. ²⁸ I consecrated these men to the Lord and then consecrated the treasures—the equipment and money and bowls that had been given as freewill offerings to the Lord God of our fathers.

²⁹ “Guard these treasures well!” I told them; “present them without a penny lost to the priests and the Levite leaders and the elders of Israel at Jerusalem, where they are to be placed in the treasury of the Temple.”

³⁰ So the priests and the Levites accepted the responsibility of taking them to God’s Temple in Jerusalem. ³¹ We broke camp at the Ahava River at the end of March^[a] and started off to Jerusalem; and God protected us and saved us from enemies and bandits along the way. ³² So at last we arrived safely at Jerusalem.

³³ On the fourth day after our arrival, the silver, gold, and other valuables were weighed in the Temple by Meremoth (the son of Uriah the priest), Eleazar (son of Phinehas), Jozabad (son of Jeshua), and Noadiah (son of Binnui)—all of whom were Levites. ³⁴ A receipt was given for each item, and the weight of the gold and silver was noted.

³⁵ Then everyone in our party sacrificed burnt offerings to the God of Israel—twelve oxen for the nation of Israel; ninety-six rams; seventy-seven lambs; and twelve goats as a sin offering. ³⁶ The king’s decrees were delivered to his lieutenants and the governors of all the provinces west of the Euphrates River, and of course they then cooperated in the rebuilding of the Temple of God.

9 But then the Jewish leaders came to tell me that many of the Jewish people and even some of the priests and Levites had taken up the horrible customs of the heathen people who lived in the land—the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians, and Amorites. ² The men of Israel had married girls from these heathen nations and had taken them as wives for their sons. So the holy people of God were being polluted by these mixed marriages, and the political leaders were some of the worst offenders.

³ When I heard this, I tore my clothing and pulled hair from my head and beard and sat down utterly baffled. ⁴ Then many who feared the God of Israel because of this sin of his people came and sat with me until the time of the evening burnt offering.

⁵ Finally I stood before the Lord in great embarrassment; then I fell to my knees and lifted my hands to the Lord, ⁶ and cried out, “O my God, I am ashamed; I blush to lift up my face to you, for our sins are piled higher than our heads and our guilt is as boundless as the heavens. ⁷ Our whole history has been one of sin; that is why we and our kings and our priests were slain by the heathen kings—we were captured, robbed, and disgraced, just as we are today. ⁸ But now we have been given a moment of peace, for you have permitted a few of us to return to Jerusalem from our exile. You have given us a moment of joy and new life in our slavery. ⁹ For we were slaves, but in your love and mercy you did not abandon us to slavery; instead, you caused the kings of Persia to be favorable to us. They have even given us their assistance in rebuilding the Temple of our God and in giving us Jerusalem as a walled city in Judah.

¹⁰ “And now, O God, what can we say after all of this? For once again we have abandoned you and broken your laws! ¹¹ The prophets warned us that the land we would possess was totally defiled by the horrible practices of the people living there. From one end to the other it is filled with corruption. ¹² You told us not to let our daughters marry their sons, and not to let our sons marry their daughters, and not to help those nations in any way. You warned us that only if we followed this rule could we become a prosperous nation and forever leave that prosperity to our children as an inheritance. ¹³ And now, even after our punishment in exile because of our wickedness (and we have been punished far less than we deserved), and even though you have let some of us return, ¹⁴ we have broken your commandments again and intermarried with people who do these awful things. Surely your anger will destroy us now until not even this little remnant escapes. ¹⁵ O Lord God of Israel, you are a just God; what hope can we have if you give us justice as we stand here before you in our wickedness?”

5 Everyone is talking about the terrible thing that has happened there among you, something so evil that even the heathen don’t do it: you have a man in your church who is living in sin with his father’s wife.^{[a] 2} And are you still so conceited, so “spiritual”? Why aren’t you mourning in sorrow and shame and seeing to it that this man is removed from your membership?

^3-4 Although I am not there with you, I have been thinking a lot about this, and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ I have already decided what to do, just as though I were there. You are to call a meeting of the church—and the power of the Lord Jesus will be with you as you meet, and I will be there in spirit— ⁵ and cast out this man from the fellowship of the church and into Satan’s hands, to punish him, in the hope that his soul will be saved when our Lord Jesus Christ returns.

⁶ What a terrible thing it is that you are boasting about your purity and yet you let this sort of thing go on. Don’t you realize that if even one person is allowed to go on sinning, soon all will be affected? ⁷ Remove this evil cancer—this wicked person—from among you, so that you can stay pure. Christ, God’s Lamb, has been slain for us. ⁸ So let us feast upon him and grow strong in the Christian life, leaving entirely behind us the cancerous old life with all its hatreds and wickedness. Let us feast instead upon the pure bread of honor and sincerity and truth.

⁹ When I wrote to you before I said not to mix with evil people. ¹⁰ But when I said that I wasn’t talking about unbelievers who live in sexual sin or are greedy cheats and thieves and idol worshipers. For you can’t live in this world without being with people like that. ¹¹ What I meant was that you are not to keep company with anyone who claims to be a brother Christian but indulges in sexual sins, or is greedy, or is a swindler, or worships idols, or is a drunkard, or abusive. Don’t even eat lunch with such a person.

¹² It isn’t our job to judge outsiders. But it certainly is our job to judge and deal strongly with those who are members of the church and who are sinning in these ways. ¹³ God alone is the Judge of those on the outside. But you yourselves must deal with this man and put him out of your church.

31 Lord, I trust in you alone. Don’t let my enemies defeat me. Rescue me because you are the God who always does what is right. ² Answer quickly when I cry to you; bend low and hear my whispered plea.^[a] Be for me a great Rock of safety from my foes. ³ Yes, you are my Rock and my fortress; honor your name by leading me out of this peril. ⁴ Pull me from the trap my enemies have set for me. For you alone are strong enough.^{[b] 5-6} Into your hand I commit my spirit.

You have rescued me, O God who keeps his promises. I worship only you; how you hate all those who worship idols, those imitation gods. ⁷ I am radiant with joy because of your mercy, for you have listened to my troubles and have seen the crisis in my soul. ⁸ You have not handed me over to my enemy but have given me open ground in which to maneuver.

21 Just as water is turned into irrigation ditches, so the Lord directs the king’s thoughts. He turns them wherever he wants to.

² We can justify our every deed, but God looks at our motives.