Mixed Marriages Forbidden

23 In those days I also saw that the Jews had 1amarried women from bAshdod, cAmmon and Moab.

24 As for their children, half spoke in the language of Ashdod, and none of them was able to speak the language of Judah, but 1the language of his own people.

25 So aI contended with them and cursed them and bstruck some of them and pulled out their hair, and cmade them swear by God, “You shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor take of their daughters for your sons or for yourselves.

26 “aDid not Solomon king of Israel sin regarding these things? bYet among the many nations there was no king like him, and che was loved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel; nevertheless the foreign women caused even him to sin.

27 “1Do we then hear about you that you have committed all this great evil aby acting unfaithfully against our God by 2marrying foreign women?”

28 Even one of the sons of Joiada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, was a son-in-law of aSanballat the Horonite, so I drove him away from me.

29 aRemember them, O my God, 1because they have defiled the priesthood and the bcovenant of the priesthood and the Levites.

30 aThus I purified them from everything foreign and appointed duties for the priests and the Levites, each in his task,

31 and I arranged afor the supply of wood at appointed times and for the first fruits. bRemember me, O my God, for good.