Nehemiah 10
The full text of Nehemiah 10 in the Trinity Bible Version — clear modern English, translated from the original Hebrew. Free to read.
1 Those who sealed it were: Nehemiah the governor, son of Hacaliah, and Zedekiah,
2 Seraiah, Azariah, Jeremiah,
3 Pashhur, Amariah, Malkijah,
4 Hattush, Shebaniah, Malluk,
5 Harim, Meremoth, Obadiah,
6 Daniel, Ginnethon, Baruch,
7 Meshullam, Abijah, Mijamin,
8 Maaziah, Bilgai, and Shemaiah. These were the priests.
9 The Levites: Jeshua son of Azaniah, Binnui of the sons of Henadad, Kadmiel,
10 and their brothers: Shebaniah, Hodiah, Kelita, Pelaiah, Hanan,
11 Mica, Rehob, Hashabiah,
12 Zakkur, Sherebiah, Shebaniah,
13 Hodiah, Bani, and Beninu.
14 The leaders of the people: 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 Malluk, Harim, and Baanah.
28 The rest of the people—the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, the temple servants, and all who had separated themselves from the peoples of the lands to the Law of God, along with their wives, sons, and daughters, everyone who had knowledge and understanding—
29 joined with their noble brothers and entered into a curse and an oath to walk in God's Law that was given through Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commands of the LORD our Lord, his ordinances, and his statutes.
30 We will not give our daughters to the peoples of the land or take their daughters for our sons.
31 If the peoples of the land bring merchandise or any grain to sell on the Sabbath day, we will not buy from them on the Sabbath or on a holy day. We will forego the crops of the seventh year and the exaction of every debt.
32 We also impose on ourselves the obligation to give a third of a shekel yearly for the service of the house of our God:
33 for the showbread, the regular grain offering, the regular burnt offering, the Sabbaths, the new moons, the appointed feasts, the holy things, the sin offerings to make atonement for Israel, and all the work of the house of our God.
34 We—the priests, the Levites, and the people—have cast lots for the wood offering, to bring it to the house of our God by families, at appointed times year by year, to burn on the altar of the LORD our God, as it is written in the Law.
35 We obligate ourselves to bring the firstfruits of our ground and the firstfruits of all fruit of every tree, year by year, to the house of the LORD,
36 and to bring to the house of our God, to the priests who minister in the house of our God, the firstborn of our sons and of our livestock, as it is written in the Law, and the firstborn of our herds and our flocks.
37 We will bring the first of our dough, our contributions, the fruit of every tree, the new wine, and the oil to the priests, to the storerooms of the house of our God; and the tithes from our ground to the Levites, for it is the Levites who collect the tithes in all our farming communities.
38 A priest, a descendant of Aaron, shall be with the Levites when the Levites receive the tithes. And the Levites shall bring up a tenth of the tithes to the house of our God, to the storerooms of the treasury.
39 For the people of Israel and the sons of Levi shall bring the contribution of grain, new wine, and oil to the storerooms where the vessels of the sanctuary are, and where the priests who minister, the gatekeepers, and the singers are. We will not neglect the house of our God.
Translation notes (8)
- Nehemiah 10:29a The pairing of alah, 'curse', with shevuah, 'oath', marks a self-maledictory covenant: the swearers invoke sanctions on themselves for breach. The formula echoes Deuteronomy 29:12, where Israel enters the covenant of the LORD 'and his curse', language drawn from ancient Near Eastern treaty ratification.
- Nehemiah 10:30a The first stipulation of the covenant repeats almost verbatim the prohibition of Deuteronomy 7:3 against intermarriage with the surrounding nations. The pledge responds to the crisis of mixed marriages confronted in Ezra 9–10 and again in Nehemiah 13:23–27, where foreign wives are linked to religious apostasy rather than to ethnicity as such.
- Nehemiah 10:31a The pledge unites two sabbatical-year laws: leaving the land fallow (Exodus 23:10-11; Leviticus 25:1-7) and remitting debts (Deuteronomy 15:1-2). Hebrew massa kol-yad, literally 'the claim of every hand', denotes loans that could be called in; the covenant community renounces collecting them in the seventh year.
- Nehemiah 10:32a The pledge of a third of a shekel differs from the half shekel prescribed in Exodus 30:13. The reduced amount may reflect the economic hardship of the postexilic community, or a difference in weight standards under Persian administration; by the first century the half-shekel temple tax was again the norm (Matthew 17:24).
- Nehemiah 10:34a The qurban ha-etsim (קֻרְבַּן הָעֵצִים), 'wood offering', is nowhere commanded in the Pentateuch; the appeal to what is written in the Law most plausibly refers to Leviticus 6:12-13, which requires that the altar fire never go out and thus presupposes a supply of fuel. Josephus attests an annual wood-bearing festival, the Xylophory, in the Second Temple period (Jewish War 2.425).
- Nehemiah 10:35a Bikkurim, 'firstfruits' (בִּכּוּרִים), denotes the earliest ripe produce owed to God before the harvest could be enjoyed. The pledge takes up the legislation of Exodus 23:19 and especially Deuteronomy 26:1-11, which requires the offering to be brought to the sanctuary; the covenant renewal thus binds the community afresh to written Torah.
- Nehemiah 10:36a Hebrew bekhorot, 'firstborn'. The clause "as it is written in the Law" points to Exodus 13:2 and Numbers 18:15-17, where every firstborn belongs to the LORD: firstborn sons were redeemed with a payment to the priests, while firstborn clean animals were sacrificed. The pledge thus commits the community to sustaining the priesthood, the theme of Numbers 18.
- Nehemiah 10:38a The Levites' obligation to pass on a tenth of what they collected, Hebrew ma'aser ha-ma'aser (מַעֲשֵׂר הַמַּעֲשֵׂר), 'the tithe of the tithe', enacts the command of Numbers 18:26, which assigns that portion to the priests. The covenant renewal thus binds the community to the Mosaic provision for both Levites and the Aaronic priesthood.
About this translation
The Trinity Bible Version (TBV) is Trinity Bible's own modern English translation, worked directly from the original Hebrew and honest to the earliest manuscripts. It was completed in 2026 — the most modern English Bible translation — and is exclusive to Trinity Bible. Every chapter, including all of Nehemiah, is free to read here on the web.
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