daily reading 49.5 (Nehemiah 10:30–39)

5-days-a-week through Daniel and other late OT books in 2023

Our opening prayer for this week:

The advent of our King

Our prayers must now employ,

And we must hymns of welcome sing

In strains of holy joy.

The everlasting Son

Incarnate deigns to be;

Himself a servant’s form puts on

To set His servants free.

O Zion’s Daughter, rise

To meet your lowly King,

Nor let your faithless heart despise

The peace He comes to bring.

As Judge, on clouds of light,

He soon will come again

And his true members all unite

With him in bliss to reign.

Before the dawning day

Let sin’s dark deeds be gone,

The sinful self be put away,

The new self all put on.

All glory to the Son,

Who comes to set us free,

With Father, Spirit, ever One,

Through all eternity. Amen.

 

Nehemiah 10:30–39

• We will not give our daughters in marriage to the surrounding peoples and will not take their daughters as wives for our sons. 
• 31 When the surrounding peoples bring merchandise or any kind of grain to sell on the Sabbath day, we will not buy from them on the Sabbath or a holy day. We will also leave the land uncultivated in the seventh year and will cancel every debt. 
• 32 We will impose the following commands on ourselves:
• To give an eighth of an ounce of silver yearly for the service of the house of our God: 33 the bread displayed before the Lord, the daily grain offering, the regular burnt offering, the Sabbath and New Moon offerings, the appointed festivals, the holy things, the sin offerings to atone for Israel, and for all the work of the house of our God.
• 34 We have cast lots among the priests, Levites, and people for the donation of wood by our ancestral families at the appointed times each year. They are to bring the wood to our God’s house to burn on the altar of the Lord our God, as it is written in the law.
• 35 We will bring the firstfruits of our land and of every fruit tree to the Lord’s house year by year. 36 We will also bring the firstborn of our sons and our livestock, as prescribed by the law, and will bring the firstborn of our herds and flocks to the house of our God, to the priests who serve in our God’s house. 37 We will bring a loaf from our first batch of dough to the priests at the storerooms of the house of our God. We will also bring the firstfruits of our grain offerings, of every fruit tree, and of the new wine and fresh oil. A tenth of our land’s produce belongs to the Levites, for the Levites are to collect the one-tenth offering in all our agricultural towns.
• 38 A priest from Aaron’s descendants is to accompany the Levites when they collect the tenth, and the Levites are to take a tenth of this offering to the storerooms of the treasury in the house of our God. 39 For the Israelites and the Levites are to bring the contributions of grain, new wine, and fresh oil to the storerooms where the articles of the sanctuary are kept and where the priests who minister are, along with the gatekeepers and singers. 
• We will not neglect the house of our God.

• Helpful notes on Nehemiah 10:30–39 

For yourself pray:

• That your first fruit giving may increase in the years to come

For others pray:

• That for Jesus' sake your congregation does not neglect the upkeep of the house of God

A psalm to listen to and ponder, as time allows:

• Psalm 140  (YouTube, soloist with guitar)