Purity of Marriage and Language

23

In those days I also saw Jews who had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab.

24

Half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod or of the other peoples, but could not speak the language of Judah.

25

I rebuked them and called down curses on them. I beat some of these men and pulled out their hair. Then I made them take an oath 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 for yourselves!

26

Did not King Solomon of Israel sin in matters like this? There was not a king like him among many nations, and he was loved by his God, who made him king over all Israel—yet foreign women drew him into sin.

27

Must we now hear that you too are doing all this terrible evil and acting unfaithfully against our God by marrying foreign women?”

28

Even one of the sons of Jehoiada son of Eliashib the high priest had become a son-in-law to Sanballat the Horonite. Therefore I drove him away from me.

29

Remember them, O my God, because they have defiled the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood and of the Levites.

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