Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who were instructing the people said to all of them, ‘This day is holy to the Lord your God. Do not mourn or weep.’ For all the people were weeping as they heard the words of the law.
For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should desire instruction from his mouth, because he is the messenger of the Lord of Armies.
Her leaders issue rulings for a bribe, her priests teach for payment, and her prophets practise divination for silver. Yet they lean on the Lord, saying, ‘Isn’t the Lord among us? No disaster will overtake us.’
And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know the true one. We are in the true one #– #that is, in his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.
To those who are without the law, like one without the law #– #though I am not without God’s law but under the law of Christ #– #to win those without the law.
In the third year of his reign, Jehoshaphat sent his officials #– #Ben-hail, Obadiah, Zechariah, Nethanel, and Micaiah #– #to teach in the cities of Judah.
Look, the days are coming – this is the declaration of the Lord God – when I will send a famine through the land: not a famine of bread or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.
Zion’s gates have fallen to the ground; he has destroyed and shattered the bars on her gates. Her king and her leaders live among the nations, instruction is no more, and even her prophets receive no vision from the Lord.