^13:23Also in those days I saw the men of Judah who had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. ^13:24Half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod (or the language of one of the other peoples mentioned²³) and were unable to speak the language of Judah. ^13:25So I entered a complaint with them. I called down a curse on them, and I struck some of the men and pulled out their hair. I had them swear by God saying, “You will not marry off²⁴ your daughters to their sons, and you will not take any of their daughters as wives for your sons or for yourselves! ^13:26Was it not because of things like these that King Solomon of Israel sinned? Among the many nations there was no king like him. He was loved by his God, and God made²⁵ him king over all Israel. But the foreign wives made even him sin! ^13:27Should we then in your case hear that you do all this great evil, thereby being unfaithful to our God by marrying²⁶ foreign wives?”

^13:28Now one of the sons of Joiada son of Eliashib the high priest was a son-in-law of Sanballat the Horonite. So I banished him from my sight.

^13:29Please remember them, O my God, because they have defiled the priesthood, the covenant of the priesthood,²⁷ and the Levites.

^13:30So I purified them of everything foreign, and I assigned specific²⁸ duties to the priests and the Levites.

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Footnotes

23 Heb “people and people.”
24 Heb “give.”
25 Heb “gave.”
26 Heb “give a dwelling to.”
27 One medieval Hebrew , the Lucianic Greek recension, and the read the plural הַכֹּהֲנִים (hakkohanim, “the priests”) rather than the singular reading of the , הַכְּהֻנָּה (hakkéhunnah, “the priesthood”).
28 Heb “a man in his work.”