¹⁶ For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? ^(A)Is it not in your going with us, ^(B)so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?”

^2 (A)For they have taken some of their daughters to be wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the ^(B)holy race^[a] has ^(C)mixed itself with the peoples of the lands. And in this faithlessness the hand of the officials and chief men has been foremost.”

⁸ Then Haman said to King Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom. ^(A)Their laws are different from those of every other people, and they do not keep the king's laws, so that it is not to the king's profit to tolerate them.

¹⁴ For ^(A)he himself is our peace, ^(B)who has made us both one and has broken down ^(C)in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility