Nehemiah 13:10-13

This forms an interesting passage, and makes a good lesson for the regulation of ministers with their people. Wherefore the Levites had fled, is not said. I should hope not because their stipend was kept back. And yet if they fled away, and in consequence the people then withheld it, the story tells much worse. In either case it is a sorry representation. Had the Levites kept up an eye to God, however ill their services were requited, God would have taken care that his servants should have been fed. Oh! what an huge volume of complaints is gone up before God, and the dreadful pages multiplying daily, of unfaithful ministers fleeing from their post like those Levites; fleecing, but not feeding their flocks; and taking wages, but giving no service. And on the other hand, how many of the people receiving their ministers labors, but not requiting them, except with ill-will: of all horrible accounts at the last day, surely this will be found the most tremendous!