13On that day the Book of Moses was read aloud in the hearing of the people and there it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever be admitted into the assembly of God,^t ²because they had not met the Israelites with food and water but had hired Balaam^u to call a curse down on them.^v (Our God, however, turned the curse into a blessing.)^w ³When the people heard this law, they excluded from Israel all who were of foreign descent.^x

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

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Cross references

tver 23; Dt 23:3
u Nu 22:3–11
vSee Nu 23:7; See Dt 23:3
wSee Nu 23:11; Dt 23:4–5
xver 23; See Ne 9:2
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