²³Also in those days I saw Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. ²⁴Half of their children spoke Ashdodite and could not speak Judean, but only the tongues of other nations. ²⁵So I quarreled with them and cursed them and beat some of their men and pulled out their hair. I made them take an oath by God: “Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves. ²⁶Did not King Solomon of Israel sin in this way? And among the many nations there was no king like him, and he was beloved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel. Yet the foreign women made even him sin. ²⁷Should we listen to you all and do this great evil, acting unfaithfully against our God by marrying foreign women?”

²⁸One from the sons of Jehoiada, son of the high priest Eliashib, who was the son-in-law of Sanballat the Horonite was there. I chased him away from me. ²⁹Remember them, my God, because of their defilements of the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites.

³⁰So I cleansed them from everything foreign, and I established responsibilities for the priests and Levites, each in his own work,

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