NO CHEATING

One day we will all face the Lord and give an account to Him for all He has given us. God will not hold us responsible for what we did not have, but for what we did have. A wise man in the Bible knew this, and his name was Ezra. He worked with Nehemiah to rebuild Jerusalem. Ezra had a special responsibility from the king. The king had given Ezra a lot of silver and gold to help rebuild the city. Ezra knew he had to be very careful with the money. Before Ezra there had been some men who had been greedy with the king's gifts. Also, Jerusalem had plenty of enemies who were looking for a chance to stop the city from being rebuilt -they had stopped the work once already by causing confusion.

Ezra didn't want any confusion about how the money was being used. He knew he would have to prove that he used the money wisely. The first thing Ezra did was to call the leaders of the city together and weigh the silver and gold. After it was counted, a few days later he counted it again. All of the money was there, exactly the right amount. Now Ezra could be sure that he could prove that no one was using it for anything that it was not supposed to be used for.

Back in those days people often cheated each other when they weighed and counted money. Each coin weighed a little different than the one before it. If you needed change for your money you had to go to a money changer. One of the things God hates the most is a cheater. That is why Jesus chased the money changers out of the temple. They were cheating people when they gave them change for their money. This shows us that God wants us to be true to him even in little things like counting and measuring.

Taken from Ezra 8

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