²⁷ Do we then hear about you that you have done all this great evil, acting unfaithfully against our God by marrying foreign (pagan) women?” ²⁸ One of the sons of Joiada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, was a son-in-law of Sanballat the Horonite, so I chased him away from me. ²⁹ O my God, remember them, because they have defiled the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites.

³⁰ Thus I cleansed and purified them from everything foreign (pagan), and I defined the duties of the priests and Levites, each one in his task;