The Daily Audio Bible Reading for Tuesday August 15, 2017 (NIV)

10 The covenant was signed and sealed with the following names: Nehemiah (the governor and son of Hacaliah), Zedekiah, ² Seraiah, Azariah, Jeremiah, ³ Pashhur, Amariah, Malchijah, ⁴ Hattush, Shebaniah, Malluch, ⁵ Harim, Meremoth, Obadiah, ⁶ Daniel, Ginnethon, Baruch, ⁷ Meshullam, Abijah, Mijamin, ⁸ Maaziah, Bilgai, and Shemaiah. These were the priests. ⁹ The Levites listed were Jeshua (Azaniah’s son), Binnui (one of Henadad’s sons), Kadmiel; ¹⁰ also their brothers: Shebaniah, Hodiah, Kelita, Pelaiah, Hanan, ¹¹ Mica, Rehob, Hashabiah, ¹² Zaccur, Sherebiah, Shebaniah, ¹³ Hodiah, Bani, and Beninu. ¹⁴ The leaders of the people listed were Parosh, Pahath-moab, Elam, Zattu, Bani, ¹⁵ Bunni, Azgad, Bebai, ¹⁶ Adonijah, Bigvai, Adin, ¹⁷ Ater, Hezekiah, Azzur, ¹⁸ Hodiah, Hashum, Bezai, ¹⁹ Hariph, Anathoth, Nebai, ²⁰ Magpiash, Meshullam, Hezir, ²¹ Meshezabel, Zadok, Jaddua, ²² Pelatiah, Hanan, Anaiah, ²³ Hoshea, Hananiah, Hasshub, ²⁴ Hallohesh, Pilha, Shobek, ²⁵ Rehum, Hashabnah, Maaseiah, ²⁶ Ahiah, Hanan, Anan, ²⁷ Malluch, Harim, and Baanah.

²⁸ Everyone else—the priests, Levites, gatekeepers, singers, temple servants, and all those who separated themselves from their foreign neighbors in order to obey God’s law, along with all their wives and sons and daughters who are old enough to understand— ²⁹ everyone joins with their leaders and relatives and binds himself with an oath and a curse to carefully observe and obey the way God has placed before us through His servant Moses—with all its commands, rules, and decrees. These are the Eternal Lord’s laws and judgments:

³⁰ Our daughters will not be married to the sons of any of our foreign neighbors. We will not allow our sons to marry their daughters.

³¹ If any of our foreign neighbors come to sell their goods, their grain, or their produce on the Sabbath, we will not buy from them then or on any holy day.

Every seven years, every Jew everywhere will allow the land to rest for one year. We will not work on it; we will not make it work. We will also cancel all outstanding debts, freeing any Israelite who has become enslaved to a creditor.

³² We are committing to tax ourselves as well. Every year each man will pay eight ounces of silver to care for God’s temple. ³³ This tax will pay for bread for the table; for the daily grain and burnt offerings; for offerings made on Sabbaths, new moon festivals, and all other yearly feasts; it will pay for the holy offerings and for the sin offerings to cover Israel’s sins. We are obligating ourselves to provide for everything that is necessary for the working of the temple of our God.

³⁴ The priests, the Levites, and the people have drawn lots to decide which ancestral family will be responsible for bringing the wood that burns on the Eternal’s altar in God’s temple. Each family will be appointed times of the year, in every year, to fill this need as the law says it should be done.^[a]

³⁵ It is also our responsibility to support the temple workers through our offerings. We will bring to the temple the first part of every crop, grain from the earth and fruit from the tree alike, every year. ³⁶ We will also bring all of our firstborns and give them to the priests working at the temple—our firstborn sons and cattle, our firstborn from our flocks and our herds—as the law of God says.^{[b] 37-38} We will bring to the priests the best of our coarse meal^[c] (which is a sacred contribution), the fruit of our trees, and our new wine and oil—to be placed in the storerooms of our God’s temple instead of used in the sanctuary. One-tenth of our crops will go for the Levites. When the Levites come to our towns to collect our offerings, we will make sure there is also a priest from Aaron’s house with them who will bring the tithes to the house of the Eternal and its storehouse. ³⁹ The Levites and the Israelites must bring the offerings of grain, new wine, and olive oil to the storerooms of the temple where the sacred containers are kept, where the working priests, the gatekeepers, and the singers gather.

We all agree—we will not neglect the temple of our God.

¹⁹ that also means that I am free of obligations to all people. And, even though no one (except Jesus) owns me, I have become a slave by my own free will to everyone in hopes that I would gather more believers. ²⁰ When around Jews, I emphasize my Jewishness in order to win them over. When around those who live strictly under the law, I live by its regulations—even though I have a different perspective on the law now—in order to win them over. ²¹ In the same way, I’ve made a life outside the law to gather those who live outside the law (although I personally abide by and live under the Anointed One’s law). ²² I’ve been broken, lost, depressed, oppressed, and weak that I might find favor and gain the weak. I’m flexible, adaptable, and able to do and be whatever is needed for all kinds of people so that in the end I can use every means at my disposal to offer them salvation. ²³ I do it all for the gospel and for the hope that I may participate with everyone who is blessed by the proclamation of the good news.

²⁴ We all know that when there’s a race, all the runners bolt for the finish line, but only one will take the prize. When you run, run for the prize! ²⁵ Athletes in training are very strict with themselves, exercising self-control over desires, and for what? For a wreath that soon withers or is crushed or simply forgotten. That is not our race. We run for the crown that we will wear for eternity. ²⁶ So I don’t run aimlessly. I don’t let my eyes drift off the finish line. When I box, I don’t throw punches in the air. ²⁷ I discipline my body and make it my slave so that after all this, after I have brought the gospel to others, I will still be qualified to win the prize.

10 I wouldn’t want you to be ignorant of our history, brothers and sisters. Our ancestors were once safeguarded under a miraculous cloud in the wilderness and brought safely through the sea. ² Enveloped in water by cloud and by sea, they were, you might say, ritually cleansed into Moses through baptism.^{[a] 3} Together they were sustained supernaturally: they all ate the same spiritual food, manna; ⁴ and they all drank the same spiritual water, flowing from a spiritual rock that was always with them, for the rock was the Anointed One, our Liberating King. ⁵ Despite all of this, they were punished in the wilderness because God was unhappy with most of them.

⁶ Look at what happened to them as an example; it’s right there in the Scriptures so that we won’t make the same mistakes and hunger after evil as they did. So here’s my advice: ⁷ don’t degrade yourselves by worshiping anything less than the living God as some of them did. Remember it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and then rose up in dance and play.”^{[b] 8} We must be careful not to engage in sexual sins as some of them did. In one day, 23,000 died because of sin.^{[c] 9} None of us must test the limits of the Lord’s patience. Some of the Israelites did, and serpents bit them and killed them. ¹⁰ You need to stop your groaning and whining. Remember the story. Some of them complained, and the messenger of death came for them and destroyed them. ¹¹ All these things happened for a reason: to sound a warning. They were written down and passed down to us to teach us. They were meant especially for us because the beginning of the end is happening in our time. ¹² So let even the most confident believers remember their examples and be very careful not to fall as some of them did.

¹³ Any temptation you face will be nothing new. But God is faithful, and He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can handle. But He always provides a way of escape so that you will be able to endure and keep moving forward.

Psalm 34

A song of David as he pretended to be insane to escape from Abimelech.