⁴Before this, Eliashib the priest had been put in charge of the storerooms^y of the house of our God. He was closely associated with Tobiah,^z ⁵and he had provided him with a large room formerly used to store the grain offerings and incense and temple articles, and also the tithes^a of grain, new wine and olive oil prescribed for the Levites, musicians and gatekeepers, as well as the contributions for the priests.

⁶But while all this was going on, I was not in Jerusalem, for in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes^b king of Babylon I had returned to the king. Some time later I asked his permission ⁷and came back to Jerusalem. Here I learned about the evil thing Eliashib^c had done in providing Tobiah^d a room in the courts of the house of God. ⁸I was greatly displeased and threw all Tobiah’s household goods out of the room.^e ⁹I gave orders to purify the rooms,^f and then I put back into them the equipment of the house of God, with the grain offerings and the incense.^g

¹⁰I also learned that the portions assigned to the Levites had not been given to them,^h and that all the Levites and musicians responsible for the service had gone back to their own fields.ⁱ

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Cross references

ySee Ne 12:44
z Ne 2:10
aSee Lev 27:30; See Nu 18:21
bSee Ne 2:6
cSee Ezr 10:24
dSee Ne 2:10
e Mt 21:12–13; Mk 11:15–17; Lk 19:45–46; Jn 2:13–16
fSee 1 Ch 23:28; See 2 Ch 29:5
gSee Lev 2:1
hSee Dt 12:19
iSee 2 Ch 31:4