Leadership Verses
Servant leadership as modeled by Christ — wisdom for those called to lead.
Blessed {be} the LORD God of our fathers, which hath put {such a thing} as this in the king's heart, to beautify the house of the LORD which {is} in Jerusalem:
And hath extended mercy unto me before the king, and his counsellors, and before all the king's mighty princes. And I was strengthened as the hand of the LORD my God {was} upon me, and I gathered together out of Israel chief men to go up with me.
These {are} now the chief of their fathers, and {this is} the genealogy of them that went up with me from Babylon, in the reign of Artaxerxes the king.
Also of the Nethinims, whom David and the princes had appointed for the service of the Levites, two hundred and twenty Nethinims: all of them were expressed by name.
For I was ashamed to require of the king a band of soldiers and horsemen to help us against the enemy in the way: because we had spoken unto the king, saying, The hand of our God {is} upon all them for good that seek him; but his power and his wrath {is} against all them that forsake him.
And weighed unto them the silver, and the gold, and the vessels, {even} the offering of the house of our God, which the king, and his counsellors, and his lords, and all Israel {there} present, had offered:
And they delivered the king's commissions unto the king's lieutenants, and to the governors on this side the river: and they furthered the people, and the house of God.
For they have taken of their daughters for themselves, and for their sons: so that the holy seed have mingled themselves with the people of {those} lands: yea, the hand of the princes and rulers hath been chief in this trespass.
Since the days of our fathers {have} we {been} in a great trespass unto this day; and for our iniquities have we, our kings, {and} our priests, been delivered into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, and to a spoil, and to confusion of face, as {it is} this day.
For we {were} bondmen; yet our God hath not forsaken us in our bondage, but hath extended mercy unto us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to give us a reviving, to set up the house of our God, and to repair the desolations thereof, and to give us a wall in Judah and in Jerusalem. {to repair: Heb. to set up}
Which thou hast commanded by thy servants the prophets, saying, The land, unto which ye go to possess it, is an unclean land with the filthiness of the people of the lands, with their abominations, which have filled it from one end to another with their uncleanness. {by: Heb. by the hand of} {from...: Heb. from mouth to mouth}
And that whosoever would not come within three days, according to the counsel of the princes and the elders, all his substance should be forfeited, and himself separated from the congregation of those that had been carried away. {forfeited: Heb. devoted}