Study Desk

You saw that his heart was true to you, and made an agreement with him to give the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Jebusite and the Girgashite, even to give it to his seed, and you have done what you said; for righteousness is yours:

And you did signs and wonders on Pharaoh and all his servants and all the people of his land; for you saw how cruel they were to them. So you got yourself a name as it is today.

And you gave them bread from heaven when they were in need, and made water come out of the rock for their drink, and gave them orders to go in and take for their heritage the land which your hand had been lifted up to give them.

Even when they had made for themselves an ox of metal, and said, This is your God who took you up out of Egypt, and had done so much to make you angry;

Truly, for forty years you were their support in the waste land, and they were in need of nothing; their clothing did not get old or their feet become tired.

And you gave them kingdoms and peoples, making distribution to them in every part of the land: so they took for their heritage the land of Sihon, even the land of the king of Heshbon, and the land of Og, king of Bashan.

And you made their children as great in number as the stars of heaven, and took them into the land, of which you had said to their fathers that they were to go in and take it for themselves.

Even then, in your great mercy, you did not put an end to them completely, or give them up; for you are a God of grace and mercy.

For they have not been your servants in their kingdom, and in all the good things you gave them, and in the great and fat land you gave them, and they have not been turned away from their evil-doing.

Now, today, we are servants, and as for the land which you gave to our fathers, so that the produce of it and the good might be theirs, see, we are servants in it:

And that we would not give our daughters to the peoples of the lands, or take their daughters for our sons;

And we made rules for ourselves, taxing ourselves a third of a shekel every year for the upkeep of the house of our God;

For the holy bread, and for the regular meal offering and the regular burned offering on the Sabbaths and at the new moon and the fixed feasts, and for the sin-offerings to take away the sin of Israel, and for all the work of the house of our God.

And that we would take the first of our rough meal, and our lifted offerings, and the fruit of every sort of tree, and wine and oil, to the priests, to the rooms of the house of our God; and the tenth of the produce of our land to the Levites; for they, the Levites, take a tenth in all the towns of our ploughed land.

For the children of Israel and the children of Levi are to take the lifted offering of the grain and wine and oil into the rooms where the vessels of the holy place are, together with the priests and the door-keepers and the makers of music: and we will not give up caring for the house of our God.

And Shabbethai and Jozabad, of the chiefs of the Levites, who were responsible for the outside business of the house of God;

For there was an order from the king about them and a regular amount for the music-makers, for their needs day by day.

And for the daughter-towns with their fields, some of the men of Judah were living in Kiriath-arba and its daughter-towns, and in Dibon and its daughter-towns, and in Jekabzeel and its daughter-towns,

And when the time came for the wall of Jerusalem to be made holy, they sent for the Levites out of all their places to come to Jerusalem, to keep the feast with joy, and with praise and melody, with brass and corded instruments of music.

And from Beth-gilgal and from the fields of Geba and Azmaveth: for the music-makers had made daughter-towns for themselves round about Jerusalem.