Now from the time when I was made ruler of the people in the land of Judah, from the twentieth year till the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes the king, for twelve years, I and my servants have never taken the food which was the right of the ruler.

Year after year you put up with them, and gave witness against them by your spirit through your prophets: still they did not give ear: and so you gave them up into the hands of the peoples of the lands.

And we, the priests and the Levites and the people, made selection, by the decision of the Lord, of those who were to take the wood offering into the house of God, by families at the regular times, year by year, to be burned on the altar of the Lord our God, as it is recorded in the law;

And to take the first-fruits of our land, and the first-fruits of every sort of tree, year by year, into the house of the Lord;