²³In those days I also saw Jews who had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab.^j ²⁴Half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod or the language of one of the other peoples but could not speak Hebrew.^B^k ²⁵I rebuked them, cursed them, beat some of their men, and pulled out their hair.^l I forced them to take an oath^m before God and said, “You must not give your daughters in marriage to their sons or take their daughters as wives for your sons or yourselves!ⁿ ²⁶Didn’t King Solomon of Israel sin in matters like this? There was not a king like him among many nations. He was loved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel, yet foreign women drew him into sin.^o ²⁷Why then should we hear about you doing all this terrible evil and acting unfaithfully against our God by marrying foreign women?”^p ²⁸Even one of the sons of Jehoiada, son of the high priest Eliashib,^q had become a son-in-law to Sanballat the Horonite.^r So I drove him away from me.^s

²⁹Remember them, my God, for defiling the priesthood as well as the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites.^t

³⁰So I purified them from everything foreign^u and assigned specific duties to each of the priests and Levites.^v

Read in Logos

Footnotes

B Judahite

Cross references

j Dt 23:3; Ezr 9:1–2; Neh 13:1–3; Mal 2:11
k Est 1:22; 8:9
l Ezr 9:3; Is 50:6
m Ezr 10:5
n Ezr 9:1–2; Neh 10:30
o 1Kg 3:13; 11:1–10
p Ezr 9:1–2
q Neh 12:10,22–23
r Neh 2:10; 4:1; 6:1
s Lv 21:10,13–15
t Neh 6:14; Mal 2:4–8
u Neh 10:30
v Neh 12:44–47