The Living Bible (152 page)
Authors: Inc. Tyndale House Publishers
Tags: #BIBLES / Other Translations / Text
These are the names and genealogies of the leaders who accompanied me from Babylon during the reign of King Artaxerxes:
2-14
From the clan of Phinehas—Gershom;
From the clan of Ithamar—Daniel;
From the subclan of David of the clan of Shecaniah—Hattush;
From the clan of Parosh—Zechariah, and 150 other men;
From the clan of Pahath-moab—Eliehoenai (son of Zerahiah), and 200 other men;
From the clan of Shecaniah—the son of Jahaziel, and 300 other men;
From the clan of Adin—Ebed (son of Jonathan), and 50 other men;
From the clan of Elam—Jeshaiah (son of Athaliah), and 70 other men;
From the clan of Shephatiah—Zebadiah (son of Michael), and 80 other men;
From the clan of Joab—Obadiah (son of Jehiel), and 218 other men;
From the clan of Bani—Shelomith (son of Josiphiah), and 160 other men;
From the clan of Bebai—Zechariah (son of Bebai), and 28 other men;
From the clan of Azgad—Johanan (son of Hakkatan), and 110 other men;
From the clan of Adonikam—Eliphelet, Jeuel, Shemaiah, and 60 other men (they arrived at a later time);
From the clan of Bigvai—Uthai, Zaccur, and 70 other men.
15
We assembled at the Ahava River and camped there for three days while I went over the lists of the people and the priests who had arrived; and I found that not one Levite had volunteered!
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So I sent for Eliezer, Ariel, Shemaiah, Elnathan, Jarib, Elnathan, Nathan, Zechariah, and Meshullam, the Levite leaders; I also sent for Joiarib and Elnathan, who were very wise men.
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I sent them to Iddo, the leader of the Jews at Casiphia, to ask him and his brothers and the Temple attendants to send us priests for the Temple of God at Jerusalem.
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And God was good! He sent us an outstanding man named Sherebiah, along with eighteen of his sons and brothers; he was a very astute man and a descendant of Mahli, the son of Levi and grandson of Israel.
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God also sent Hashabiah; and Jeshaiah (the son of Merari), with twenty of his sons and brothers;
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and 220 Temple attendants. (The Temple attendants were assistants to the Levites—a job classification of Temple employees first instituted by King David.) These 220 men were all listed by name.
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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.
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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!
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So we fasted and begged God to take care of us. And he did.
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I appointed twelve leaders of the priests—Sherebiah, Hashabiah, and ten other priests—
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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.
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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.
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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.
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“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.”
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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
*
and started off to Jerusalem; and God protected us and saved us from enemies and bandits along the way.
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So at last we arrived safely at Jerusalem.
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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.
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A receipt was given for each item, and the weight of the gold and silver was noted.
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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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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Finally I stood before the Lord in great embarrassment; then I fell to my knees and lifted my hands to the Lord,
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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“And now, O God, what can we say after all of this? For once again we have abandoned you and broken your laws!
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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.
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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.
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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,
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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.
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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?”
As I lay on the ground in front of the Temple, weeping and praying and making this confession, a large crowd of men, women, and children gathered around and cried with me.
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Then Shecaniah (the son of Jehiel of the clan of Elam) said to me, “We acknowledge our sin against our God, for we have married these heathen women. But there is hope for Israel in spite of this.
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For we agree before our God to divorce our heathen wives and to send them away with our children; we will follow your commands and the commands of the others who fear our God. We will obey the laws of God.
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Take courage and tell us how to proceed in setting things straight, and we will fully cooperate.”
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So I stood up and demanded that the leaders of the priests and the Levites and all the people of Israel swear that they would do as Shecaniah had said; and they all agreed.
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Then I went into the room of Jehohanan in the Temple and refused all food and drink, for I was mourning because of the sin of the returned exiles.
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Then a proclamation was made throughout Judah and Jerusalem that everyone should appear at Jerusalem within three days and that the leaders and elders had decided that anyone who refused to come would be disinherited and excommunicated from Israel.
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Within three days, on the fifth day of December,
*
all the men of Judah and Benjamin had arrived and were sitting in the open space before the Temple; and they were trembling because of the seriousness of the matter and because of the heavy rainfall.
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Then I, Ezra the priest, arose and addressed them:
“You have sinned, for you have married heathen women; now we are even more deeply under God’s condemnation than we were before.
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Confess your sin to the Lord God of your fathers and do what he demands: separate yourselves from the heathen people about you and from these women.”
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Then all the men spoke up and said, “We will do what you have said.
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But this isn’t something that can be done in a day or two, for there are many of us involved in this sinful affair. And it is raining so hard that we can’t stay out here much longer.
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Let our leaders arrange trials for us. Everyone who has a heathen wife will come at the scheduled time with the elders and judges of his city; then each case will be decided and the situation will be cleared up, and the fierce wrath of our God will be turned away from us.”
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Only Jonathan (son of Asahel), Jahzeiah (son of Tikvah), Meshullam, and Shabbethai the Levite opposed this course of action.
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So this was the plan that was followed: Some of the clan leaders and I were designated as judges; we began our work on December 15 and finished by March 15.
Following is the list of priests who had married heathen wives (they vowed to divorce their wives and acknowledged their guilt by offering rams as sacrifices): Maaseiah, Eliezer, Jarib, Gedaliah.
20
The sons of Immer: Hanani, Zebadiah.
21
The sons of Harim: Maaseiah, Elijah, Shemaiah, Jehiel, Uzziah.
22
The sons of Pashhur: Elioenai, Maaseiah, Ishmael, Nethanel, Jozabad, Elasah.
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The Levites who were guilty: Jozabad, Shimei, Kelaiah (also called Kelita), Pethahaiah, Judah, Eliezer.
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Of the singers, there was Eliashib.
Of the gatekeepers, Shallum, Telem, and Uri.
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Here is the list of ordinary citizens who were declared guilty:
From the clan of Parosh: Ramiah, Izziah, Malchijah, Mijamin, Eleazar, Hashabiah, Benaiah.
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From the clan of Elam: Mattaniah, Zechariah, Jehiel, Abdi, Jeremoth, Elijah.
27
From the clan of Zattu: Elioenai, Eliashib, Mattaniah, Jeremoth, Zabad, Aziza.
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From the clan of Bebai: Jehohanan, Hananiah, Zabbai, Athlai.
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From the clan of Bani: Meshullam, Malluch, Adaiah, Jashub, Sheal, Jeremoth.
30
From the clan of Pahath-moab: Adna, Chelal, Benaiah, Maaseiah, Mattaniah, Bezalel, Binnui, Manasseh.
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From the clan of Harim: Eliezer, Isshijah, Malchijah, Shemaiah, Shimeon, Benjamin, Malluch, Shemariah.
33
From the clan of Hashum: Mattenai, Mattattah, Zabad, Eliphelet, Jeremai, Manasseh, Shimei.
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From the clan of Bani: Maadai, Amram, Uel, Banaiah, Bedeiah, Cheluhi, Vaniah, Meremoth, Eliashib, Mattaniah, Mattenai, Jaasu, Bani, Binnui, Shimei, Shelemiah, Nathan, Adaiah, Machnadebai, Shashai, Sharai, Azarel, Shelemiah, Shemariah, Shallum, Amariah, Joseph.
43
From the clan of Nebo: Jeiel, Mattithiah, Zabad, Zebina, Jaddai, Joel, Benaiah.
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Each of these men had heathen wives, and many had children by these wives.