Immerse: Chronicles Full Volume - Flipbook - Page 142
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IMMERSE
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CHRONICLES
8:13–9:8
On October 9 the family leaders of all the people, together with the
priests and Levites, met with Ezra the scribe to go over the Law in greater
detail. As they studied the Law, they discovered that the Lord had commanded through Moses that the Israelites should live in shelters during
the festival to be held that month. He had said that a proclamation should
be made throughout their towns and in Jerusalem, telling the people to go
to the hills to get branches from olive, wild olive, myrtle, palm, and other
leafy trees. They were to use these branches to make shelters in which they
would live during the festival, as prescribed in the Law.
So the people went out and cut branches and used them to build shelters
on the roofs of their houses, in their courtyards, in the courtyards of God’s
Temple, or in the squares just inside the Water Gate and the Ephraim Gate.
So everyone who had returned from captivity lived in these shelters during
the festival, and they were all filled with great joy! The Israelites had not
celebrated like this since the days of Joshua son of Nun.
Ezra read from the Book of the Law of God on each of the seven days of
the festival. Then on the eighth day they held a solemn assembly, as was
required by law.
On October 31 the people assembled again, and this time they fasted and
dressed in burlap and sprinkled dust on their heads. Those of Israelite
descent separated themselves from all foreigners as they confessed their
own sins and the sins of their ancestors. They remained standing in place
for three hours while the Book of the Law of the Lord their God was
read aloud to them. Then for three more hours they confessed their sins
and worshiped the Lord their God. The Levites—Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel,
Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Kenani—s tood on the stairway of
the Levites and cried out to the Lord their God with loud voices.
Then the leaders of the Levites—Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah,
Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah—called out to the people:
“Stand up and praise the Lord your God, for he lives from everlasting to
everlasting!” Then they prayed:
“May your glorious name be praised! May it be exalted above all
blessing and praise!
“You alone are the Lord. You made the skies and the heavens and
all the stars. You made the earth and the seas and everything in them.
You preserve them all, and the angels of heaven worship you.
“You are the Lord God, who chose Abram and brought him from
Ur of the Chaldeans and renamed him Abraham. When he had proved
himself faithful, you made a covenant with him to give him and his
descendants the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites,
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