Nehemiah 13:17

They don’t know, neither do they understand. They walk back and forth in darkness. All the foundations of the earth are shaken.

“If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be to him as a creditor. You shall not charge him interest.

“If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, and the holy of Yahweh honorable; and honor it, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words,

and you take of their daughters to your sons, and their daughters play the prostitute after their gods, and make your sons play the prostitute after their gods.

Take no interest from him or profit; but fear your God, that your brother may live among you.

and Jehoiachin the king of Judah went out to the king of Babylon, he, and his mother, and his servants, and his princes, and his officers; and the king of Babylon captured him in the eighth year of his reign.

For the children of Israel and the children of Levi shall bring the wave offering of the grain, of the new wine, and of the oil, to the rooms, where the vessels of the sanctuary are, and the priests who minister, with the gatekeepers and the singers. We will not forsake the house of our God.

“Let’s break their bonds apart, and cast their cords from us.”

An evildoer heeds wicked lips. A liar gives ear to a mischievous tongue.

I will cast you out with your mother who bore you into another country, where you were not born; and there you will die.

Have no fellowship with the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but rather even reprove them.

Their dead bodies will be in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.

and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.”

“You shall be holy men to me, therefore you shall not eat any meat that is torn by animals in the field. You shall cast it to the dogs.

For you are a holy people to Yahweh your God. Yahweh your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, above all peoples who are on the face of the earth.

For you are a holy people to Yahweh your God, and Yahweh has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, above all peoples who are on the face of the earth.

He said to his mother, “The eleven hundred pieces of silver that were taken from you, about which you uttered a curse, and also spoke it in my ears—behold, the silver is with me. I took it.” His mother said, “May Yahweh bless my son!”

He answered, “I have not troubled Israel; but you, and your father’s house, in that you have forsaken Yahweh’s commandments, and you have followed the Baals.

He carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, with the king’s mother, the king’s wives, his officers, and the chief men of the land. He carried them into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon.

shall we again break your commandments, and join ourselves with the peoples that do these abominations? Wouldn’t you be angry with us until you had consumed us, so that there would be no remnant, nor any to escape?

Then Ezra arose, and made the chiefs of the priests, the Levites, and all Israel, to swear that they would do according to this word. So they swore.

Then I contended with the rulers, and said, “Why is God’s house forsaken?” I gathered them together, and set them in their place.

Praise Yah! Blessed is the man who fears Yahweh, who delights greatly in his commandments.

Your princes are rebellious and companions of thieves. Everyone loves bribes and follows after rewards. They don’t defend the fatherless, neither does the cause of the widow come to them.

Therefore hear Yahweh’s word, you scoffers, that rule this people in Jerusalem:

The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned!

Moreover also I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am Yahweh who sanctifies them.

Make my Sabbaths holy. They shall be a sign between me and you, that you may know that I am Yahweh your God.’

the Lord Yahweh says: “Remove the turban, and take off the crown. This will not be as it was. Exalt that which is low, and humble that which is high.

But when his heart was lifted up, and his spirit was hardened so that he dealt proudly, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him.

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for his baptism, he said to them, “You offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

For John said to him, “It is not lawful for you to have her.”

who, knowing the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but also approve of those who practice them.

Don’t be unequally yoked with unbelievers, for what fellowship do righteousness and iniquity have? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness?

“ ‘You shall do no injustice in judgment. You shall not be partial to the poor, nor show favoritism to the great; but you shall judge your neighbor in righteousness.

For from the top of the rocks I see him. From the hills I see him. Behold, it is a people that dwells alone, and shall not be listed among the nations.

‘Cursed is he who withholds justice from the foreigner, fatherless, and widow.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, of the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are poison grapes. Their clusters are bitter.

Elijah came near to all the people, and said, “How long will you waver between the two sides? If Yahweh is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” The people didn’t say a word.

Micaiah said, “Therefore hear Yahweh’s word. I saw Yahweh sitting on his throne, and all the army of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left.

They resisted Uzziah the king, and said to him, “It isn’t for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to Yahweh, but for the priests the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense. Go out of the sanctuary, for you have trespassed. It will not be for your honor from Yahweh God.”

When he was in distress, he begged Yahweh his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.

His prayer also, and how God was entreated of him, and all his sin and his trespass, and the places in which he built high places, and set up the Asherah poles and the engraved images, before he humbled himself: behold, they are written in the history of Hozai.

Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, answered Ezra, “We have trespassed against our God, and have married foreign women of the peoples of the land. Yet now there is hope for Israel concerning this thing.

I contended with them, and cursed them, and struck certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, “You shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor take their daughters for your sons, or for yourselves.

For the wicked boasts of his heart’s cravings. He blesses the greedy and condemns Yahweh.

he who doesn’t lend out his money for usury, nor take a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things shall never be shaken.

Though while he lived he blessed his soul— and men praise you when you do well for yourself—

One who rebukes a man will afterward find more favor than one who flatters with the tongue.

The look of their faces testify against them. They parade their sin like Sodom. They don’t hide it. Woe to their soul! For they have brought disaster upon themselves.

If there is a tenth left in it, that also will in turn be consumed, as a terebinth, and as an oak, whose stump remains when they are cut down; so the holy seed is its stock.”

“Come down and sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, daughter of the Chaldeans. For you will no longer be called tender and delicate.

I gave my back to those who beat me, and my cheeks to those who plucked off the hair. I didn’t hide my face from shame and spitting.

‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and you don’t see? Why have we afflicted our soul, and you don’t notice?’ “Behold, in the day of your fast you find pleasure, and oppress all your laborers.

“For long ago I broke off your yoke, and burst your bonds. You said, ‘I will not serve;’ for on every high hill and under every green tree you bowed yourself, playing the prostitute.

“Concerning the house of the king of Judah, hear Yahweh’s word:

Now when they had heard all the words, they turned in fear one toward another, and said to Baruch, “We will surely tell the king of all these words.”

He said to me, “Son of man, these are the men who devise iniquity, and who give wicked counsel in this city;

“Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel who prophesy, and say to those who prophesy out of their own heart, ‘Hear Yahweh’s word:

Your elder sister is Samaria, who dwells at your left hand, she and her daughters; and your younger sister, who dwells at your right hand, is Sodom with her daughters.

“ ‘ “Behold, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: pride, fullness of bread, and prosperous ease was in her and in her daughters. She also didn’t strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.

In you have they taken bribes to shed blood. You have taken interest and increase, and you have greedily gained of your neighbors by oppression, and have forgotten me,” says the Lord Yahweh.

Hear this word that Yahweh has spoken against you, children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up out of the land of Egypt, saying:

Now I will break his yoke from off you, and will burst your bonds apart.”

Judah has dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah has profaned the holiness of Yahweh which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god.

Did he not make you one, although he had the residue of the Spirit? Why one? He sought godly offspring. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let no one deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.

But he said, “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God, and keep it.”

If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time,

forsaking the right way, they went astray, having followed the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of wrongdoing;

They came to the children of Reuben, and to the children of Gad, and to the half-tribe of Manasseh, to the land of Gilead, and they spoke with them, saying,

When Samuel saw Saul, Yahweh said to him, “Behold, the man of whom I spoke to you! He will have authority over my people.”

For they have taken of their daughters for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy offspring have mixed themselves with the peoples of the lands. Yes, the hand of the princes and rulers has been chief in this trespass.”

When I heard this thing, I tore my garment and my robe, and pulled the hair out of my head and of my beard, and sat down confounded.

Now therefore don’t give your daughters to their sons. Don’t take their daughters to your sons, nor seek their peace or their prosperity forever; that you may be strong, and eat the good of the land, and leave it for an inheritance to your children forever.’

I was very angry when I heard their cry and these words.

Then I consulted with myself, and contended with the nobles and the rulers, and said to them, “You exact usury, everyone of his brother.” I held a great assembly against them.

I likewise, my brothers and my servants, lend them money and grain. Please let us stop this usury.

Then they said, “We will restore them, and will require nothing of them. We will do so, even as you say.” Then I called the priests, and took an oath of them, that they would do according to this promise.

Moreover in those days the nobles of Judah sent many letters to Tobiah, and Tobiah’s letters came to them.

joined with their brothers, their nobles, and entered into a curse, and into an oath, to walk in God’s law, which was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of Yahweh our Lord, and his ordinances and his statutes;

If his children forsake my law, and don’t walk in my ordinances;

but it will go well with those who convict the guilty, and a rich blessing will come on them.

Those who forsake the law praise the wicked; but those who keep the law contend with them.

Hear Yahweh’s word, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah!

Blessed is the man who does this, and the son of man who holds it fast; who keeps the Sabbath without profaning it and keeps his hand from doing any evil.”

I will go to the great men and will speak to them, for they know the way of Yahweh, and the law of their God.” But these with one accord have broken the yoke, and burst the bonds.

Yahweh says, “Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice or walked in my ways,

Say to the king and to the queen mother, “Humble yourselves. Sit down, for your crowns have come down, even the crown of your glory.

I said, “Please listen, you heads of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel: Isn’t it for you to know justice?

You who hate the good, and love the evil; who tear off their skin, and their flesh from off their bones;

Please listen to this, you heads of the house of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel, who abhor justice, and pervert all equity.