One Year Bible.

I Will Sing of His Love Forever

¹A Maskil of Ethan the Ezrahite.

I will sing of the loving devotion of the LORD forever;

with my mouth I will proclaim Your faithfulness to all generations.

²For I have said, “Loving devotion is built up forever;

in the heavens You establish Your faithfulness.”

³You said, “I have made a covenant with My chosen one,

I have sworn to David My servant:

⁴‘I will establish your offspring forever

and build up your throne for all generations.’”

Selah

⁵The heavens praise Your wonders, O LORD —

Your faithfulness as well —

in the assembly of the holy ones.

⁶For who in the skies can compare with the LORD?

Who among the heavenly beings is like the LORD?

⁷In the council of the holy ones, God is greatly feared,

and awesome above all who surround Him.

⁸O LORD God of Hosts, who is like You?

O mighty LORD, Your faithfulness surrounds You.

⁹You rule the raging sea;

when its waves mount up, You still them.

¹⁰You crushed Rahab like a carcass;

You scattered Your enemies with Your mighty arm.

¹¹The heavens are Yours, and also the earth.

The earth and its fullness You founded.

¹²North and south You created;

Tabor and Hermon shout for joy at Your name.

¹³Mighty is Your arm; strong is Your hand.

Your right hand is exalted.

¹⁴Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne;

loving devotion and faithfulness go before You.

¹⁵Blessed are those who know the joyful sound,

who walk, O LORD, in the light of Your presence.

¹⁶They rejoice in Your name all day long,

and in Your righteousness they exult.

¹⁷For You are the glory of their strength,

and by Your favor our horn is exalted.

¹⁸Surely our shield belongs to the LORD,

and our king to the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁹You once spoke in a vision;

to Your godly ones You said,

“I have bestowed help on a warrior;

I have exalted one chosen from the people.

²⁰I have found My servant David;

with My sacred oil I have anointed him.

²¹My hand will sustain him;

surely My arm will strengthen him.

²²No enemy will exact tribute;

no wicked man will oppress him.

²³I will crush his foes before him

and strike down those who hate him.

²⁴My faithfulness and loving devotion will be with him,

and through My name his horn will be exalted.

²⁵I will set his hand over the sea,

and his right hand upon the rivers.

²⁶He will call to Me, ‘You are my Father,

my God, the Rock of my salvation.’

²⁷I will indeed appoint him as My firstborn,

the highest of the kings of the earth.

²⁸I will forever preserve My loving devotion for him,

and My covenant with him will stand fast.

²⁹I will establish his line forever,

his throne as long as the heavens endure.

³⁰If his sons forsake My law

and do not walk in My judgments,

³¹if they violate My statutes

and fail to keep My commandments,

³²I will attend to their transgression with the rod,

and to their iniquity with stripes.

³³But I will not withdraw My loving devotion from him,

nor ever betray My faithfulness.

³⁴I will not violate My covenant

or alter the utterance of My lips.

³⁵Once and for all I have sworn by My holiness —

I will not lie to David —

³⁶his offspring shall endure forever,

and his throne before Me like the sun,

³⁷like the moon, established forever,

a faithful witness in the sky.”

Selah

³⁸Now, however, You have spurned and rejected him;

You are enraged by Your anointed one.

³⁹You have renounced the covenant with Your servant

and sullied his crown in the dust.

⁴⁰You have broken down all his walls;

You have reduced his strongholds to rubble.

⁴¹All who pass by plunder him;

he has become a reproach to his neighbors.

⁴²You have exalted the right hand of his foes;

You have made all his enemies rejoice.

⁴³You have bent the edge of his sword

and have not sustained him in battle.

⁴⁴You have ended his splendor

and cast his throne to the ground.

⁴⁵You have cut short the days of his youth;

You have covered him with shame.

Selah

⁴⁶How long, O LORD?

Will You hide Yourself forever?

Will Your wrath keep burning like fire?

⁴⁷Remember the briefness of my lifespan!

For what futility You have created all men!

⁴⁸What man can live and never see death?

Can he deliver his soul from the power of Sheol?

Selah

⁴⁹Where, O Lord, is Your loving devotion of old,

which You faithfully swore to David?

⁵⁰Remember, O Lord, the reproach of Your servants,

which I bear in my heart from so many people —

⁵¹how Your enemies have taunted, O LORD,

and have mocked every step of Your anointed one!

⁵²Blessed be the LORD forever!

Amen and amen.

Ministers of a New Covenant

¹Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you? ²You yourselves are our letter, inscribed on our hearts, known and read by everyone. ³It is clear that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

⁴Such confidence before God is ours through Christ. ⁵Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim that anything comes from us, but our competence comes from God. ⁶And He has qualified us as ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

The Glory of the New Covenant

⁷Now if the ministry of death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at the face of Moses because of its fleeting glory, ⁸will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? ⁹For if the ministry of condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry of righteousness! ¹⁰Indeed, what was once glorious has no glory now in comparison to the glory that surpasses it. ¹¹For if what was fading away came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which endures!

¹²Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. ¹³We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at the end of what was fading away.

¹⁴But their minds were closed. For to this day the same veil remains at the reading of the old covenant. It has not been lifted, because only in Christ can it be removed. ¹⁵And even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. ¹⁶But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.

¹⁷Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. ¹⁸And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into His image with intensifying glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

Nehemiah Defends the Oppressed

¹About that time there was a great outcry from the people and their wives against their fellow Jews.

²Some were saying, “We and our sons and daughters are numerous. We must get grain in order to eat and stay alive.”

³Others were saying, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, and our homes to get grain during the famine.”

⁴Still others were saying, “We have borrowed money to pay the king’s tax on our fields and vineyards. ⁵We and our children are just like our countrymen and their children, yet we are subjecting our sons and daughters to slavery. Some of our daughters are already enslaved, but we are powerless to redeem them because our fields and vineyards belong to others.”

⁶When I heard their outcry and these complaints, I became extremely angry, ⁷and after serious thought I rebuked the nobles and officials, saying, “You are exacting usury from your own brothers!”

So I called a large assembly against them ⁸and said, “We have done our best to buy back our Jewish brothers who were sold to foreigners, but now you are selling your own brothers, that they may be sold back to us!”

But they remained silent, for they could find nothing to say.

⁹So I continued, “What you are doing is not right. Shouldn’t you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of our foreign enemies? ¹⁰I, as well as my brothers and my servants, have been lending the people money and grain. Please, let us stop this usury. ¹¹Please restore to them immediately their fields, vineyards, olive groves, and houses, along with the percentage of the money, grain, new wine, and oil that you have been assessing them.”

¹²“We will restore it,” they replied, “and will require nothing more from them. We will do as you say.”

So I summoned the priests and required of the nobles and officials an oath that they would do what they had promised. ¹³I also shook out the folds of my robe and said, “May God likewise shake out of his house and possessions every man who does not keep this promise. May such a man be shaken out and have nothing!”

The whole assembly said, “Amen,” and they praised the LORD. And the people did as they had promised.

Nehemiah’s Generosity

¹⁴Furthermore, from the day King Artaxerxes appointed me to be their governor in the land of Judah, from his twentieth year until his thirty-second year (twelve years total), neither I nor my brothers ate the food allotted to the governor.

¹⁵The governors before me had heavily burdened the people, taking from them bread and wine plus forty shekels of silver. Their servants also oppressed the people. But I did not do this, because of my fear of God. ¹⁶Instead, I devoted myself to the construction of the wall, and all my servants were gathered there for the work; we did not acquire any land.

¹⁷There were 150 Jews and officials at my table, besides the guests from the surrounding nations. ¹⁸Each day one ox, six choice sheep, and some fowl were prepared for me, and once every ten days an abundance of all kinds of wine was provided. But I did not demand the food allotted to the governor, because the burden on the people was so heavy.

¹⁹Remember me favorably, O my God, for all that I have done for this people.

Sanballat’s Conspiracy

¹When Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab, and the rest of our enemies heard that I had rebuilt the wall and not a gap was left— though to that time I had not yet installed the doors in the gates— ²Sanballat and Geshem sent me this message: “Come, let us meet together in one of the villages on the plain of Ono.”

But they were planning to harm me.

³So I sent messengers to them, saying, “I am doing a great work and cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it to go down to you?”

⁴Four times they sent me the same message, and each time I gave the same reply.

⁵The fifth time, Sanballat sent me this same message by his young servant, who had in his hand an unsealed letter ⁶that read:

“It is reported among the nations— and Geshem agrees— that you and the Jews are plotting to revolt, and this is why you are building the wall. According to these reports, you are to become their king, ⁷and you have even appointed prophets in Jerusalem to proclaim on your behalf: ‘There is a king in Judah.’ Soon these rumors will reach the ears of the king. So come, let us confer together.”

⁸Then I sent him this reply: “There is nothing to these rumors you are spreading; you are inventing them in your own mind.”

⁹For they were all trying to frighten us, saying, “Their hands will be weakened in the work, and it will never be finished.”

But now, my God, strengthen my hands.

¹⁰Later, I went to the house of Shemaiah son of Delaiah, the son of Mehetabel, who was confined to his house. He said:

“Let us meet at the house of God

inside the temple.

Let us shut the temple doors

because they are coming to kill you —

by night they are coming to kill you!”

¹¹But I replied, “Should a man like me run away? Should one like me go into the temple to save his own life? I will not go!”

¹²I realized that God had not sent him, but that he had uttered this prophecy against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him. ¹³He had been hired to intimidate me so that I would sin by doing as he suggested, so they could give me a bad name in order to discredit me.

¹⁴O my God, remember Tobiah and Sanballat for what they have done, and also Noadiah the prophetess and the other prophets who tried to intimidate me.

Completion of the Wall

¹⁵So the wall was completed in fifty-two days, on the twenty-fifth of Elul. ¹⁶When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and disheartened, for they realized that this task had been accomplished by our God.

¹⁷Also in those days, the nobles of Judah sent many letters to Tobiah, and Tobiah’s letters kept coming to them. ¹⁸For many in Judah were bound by oath to him, since he was a son-in-law of Shecaniah son of Arah, and his son Jehohanan had married the daughter of Meshullam son of Berechiah.

¹⁹Moreover, these nobles kept reporting to me Tobiah’s good deeds, and they relayed my words to him. And Tobiah sent letters to intimidate me.