Nehemiah 13:23–30

You Shall Not Marry Foreigners

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

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

²⁵So ^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 up 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 gave him to be king over all Israel; nevertheless the foreign women caused even him to sin.

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

²⁸And 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 made him flee away from me.

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

^30aThus I cleansed them from everything foreign and ensured that the responsibilities stood for the priests and the Levites, each in his work,