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Genesis 28:13
There above it stood the Lord, and he said:“ I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying.
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Genesis 12:7
The Lord appeared to Abram and said,“ To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.
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Genesis 26:3-4
Stay in this land for a while, and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and your descendants I will give all these lands and will confirm the oath I swore to your father Abraham.I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and will give them all these lands, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed,
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Genesis 48:4
and said to me,‘ I am going to make you fruitful and increase your numbers. I will make you a community of peoples, and I will give this land as an everlasting possession to your descendants after you.’
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Genesis 13:14-17
The Lord said to Abram after Lot had parted from him,“ Look around from where you are, to the north and south, to the east and west.All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever.I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted.Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you.”
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Genesis 15:18
On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said,“ To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates—
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Exodus 3:8
So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey— the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.
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Genesis 28:3-4
May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers until you become a community of peoples.May he give you and your descendants the blessing given to Abraham, so that you may take possession of the land where you now reside as a foreigner, the land God gave to Abraham.”
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Joshua 6:1-21
Now the gates of Jericho were securely barred because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in.Then the Lord said to Joshua,“ See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men.March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days.Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets.When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have the whole army give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the army will go up, everyone straight in.”So Joshua son of Nun called the priests and said to them,“ Take up the ark of the covenant of the Lord and have seven priests carry trumpets in front of it.”And he ordered the army,“ Advance! March around the city, with an armed guard going ahead of the ark of the Lord.”When Joshua had spoken to the people, the seven priests carrying the seven trumpets before the Lord went forward, blowing their trumpets, and the ark of the Lord’s covenant followed them.The armed guard marched ahead of the priests who blew the trumpets, and the rear guard followed the ark. All this time the trumpets were sounding.But Joshua had commanded the army,“ Do not give a war cry, do not raise your voices, do not say a word until the day I tell you to shout. Then shout!”So he had the ark of the Lord carried around the city, circling it once. Then the army returned to camp and spent the night there.Joshua got up early the next morning and the priests took up the ark of the Lord.The seven priests carrying the seven trumpets went forward, marching before the ark of the Lord and blowing the trumpets. The armed men went ahead of them and the rear guard followed the ark of the Lord, while the trumpets kept sounding.So on the second day they marched around the city once and returned to the camp. They did this for six days.On the seventh day, they got up at daybreak and marched around the city seven times in the same manner, except that on that day they circled the city seven times.The seventh time around, when the priests sounded the trumpet blast, Joshua commanded the army,“ Shout! For the Lord has given you the city!The city and all that is in it are to be devoted to the Lord. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall be spared, because she hid the spies we sent.But keep away from the devoted things, so that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them. Otherwise you will make the camp of Israel liable to destruction and bring trouble on it.All the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron are sacred to the Lord and must go into his treasury.”When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so everyone charged straight in, and they took the city.They devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it— men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.
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Nehemiah 13:1-31
On 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,because they had not met the Israelites with food and water but had hired Balaam to call a curse down on them.( Our God, however, turned the curse into a blessing.)When the people heard this law, they excluded from Israel all who were of foreign descent.Before this, Eliashib the priest had been put in charge of the storerooms of the house of our God. He was closely associated with Tobiah,and he had provided him with a large room formerly used to store the grain offerings and incense and temple articles, and also the tithes of grain, new wine and olive oil prescribed for the Levites, musicians and gatekeepers, as well as the contributions for the priests.But while all this was going on, I was not in Jerusalem, for in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I had returned to the king. Some time later I asked his permissionand came back to Jerusalem. Here I learned about the evil thing Eliashib had done in providing Tobiah a room in the courts of the house of God.I was greatly displeased and threw all Tobiah’s household goods out of the room.I gave orders to purify the rooms, and then I put back into them the equipment of the house of God, with the grain offerings and the incense.I also learned that the portions assigned to the Levites had not been given to them, and that all the Levites and musicians responsible for the service had gone back to their own fields.So I rebuked the officials and asked them,“ Why is the house of God neglected?” Then I called them together and stationed them at their posts.All Judah brought the tithes of grain, new wine and olive oil into the storerooms.I put Shelemiah the priest, Zadok the scribe, and a Levite named Pedaiah in charge of the storerooms and made Hanan son of Zakkur, the son of Mattaniah, their assistant, because they were considered trustworthy. They were made responsible for distributing the supplies to their fellow Levites.Remember me for this, my God, and do not blot out what I have so faithfully done for the house of my God and its services.In those days I saw people in Judah treading winepresses on the Sabbath and bringing in grain and loading it on donkeys, together with wine, grapes, figs and all other kinds of loads. And they were bringing all this into Jerusalem on the Sabbath. Therefore I warned them against selling food on that day.People from Tyre who lived in Jerusalem were bringing in fish and all kinds of merchandise and selling them in Jerusalem on the Sabbath to the people of Judah.I rebuked the nobles of Judah and said to them,“ What is this wicked thing you are doing— desecrating the Sabbath day?Didn’t your ancestors do the same things, so that our God brought all this calamity on us and on this city? Now you are stirring up more wrath against Israel by desecrating the Sabbath.”When evening shadows fell on the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath, I ordered the doors to be shut and not opened until the Sabbath was over. I stationed some of my own men at the gates so that no load could be brought in on the Sabbath day.Once or twice the merchants and sellers of all kinds of goods spent the night outside Jerusalem.But I warned them and said,“ Why do you spend the night by the wall? If you do this again, I will arrest you.” From that time on they no longer came on the Sabbath.Then I commanded the Levites to purify themselves and go and guard the gates in order to keep the Sabbath day holy. Remember me for this also, my God, and show mercy to me according to your great love.Moreover, in those days I saw men of Judah who had married women from Ashdod, Ammon and Moab.Half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod or the language of one of the other peoples, and did not know how to speak the language of Judah.I rebuked them and called curses down on them. I beat some of the men and pulled out their hair. I made them take an oath in God’s name and said:“ You are not to give your daughters in marriage to their sons, nor are you to take their daughters in marriage for your sons or for yourselves.Was it not because of marriages like these that Solomon king of Israel sinned? Among the many nations there was no king like him. He was loved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel, but even he was led into sin by foreign women.Must we hear now that you too are doing all this terrible wickedness and are being unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women?”One of the sons of Joiada son of Eliashib the high priest was son-in-law to Sanballat the Horonite. And I drove him away from me.Remember them, my God, because they defiled the priestly office and the covenant of the priesthood and of the Levites.So I purified the priests and the Levites of everything foreign, and assigned them duties, each to his own task.I also made provision for contributions of wood at designated times, and for the firstfruits. Remember me with favor, my God.
