Exclusion From the Assembly

23 ^[a]No one who has been emasculated^(A) by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of the Lord.

²⁸ There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free,^(A) nor is there male and female,^(B) for you are all one in Christ Jesus.^(C)

⁴ For this is what the Lord says:

Nehemiah’s Final Reforms

13 On that day the Book of Moses was read aloud in the hearing of the people and there it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever be admitted into the assembly of God,^{(A) 2} because they had not met the Israelites with food and water but had hired Balaam^(B) to call a curse down on them.^(C) (Our God, however, turned the curse into a blessing.)^{(D) 3} When the people heard this law, they excluded from Israel all who were of foreign descent.^(E)

² No one born of a forbidden marriage^[a] nor any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord, not even in the tenth generation.

³ No Ammonite^(A) or Moabite or any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord, not even in the tenth generation.^(B)

¹⁷ “Say to Aaron: ‘For the generations to come none of your descendants who has a defect^(A) may come near to offer the food of his God.^{(B) 18} No man who has any defect^(C) may come near: no man who is blind^(D) or lame,^(E) disfigured or deformed; ¹⁹ no man with a crippled foot or hand, ²⁰ or who is a hunchback or a dwarf, or who has any eye defect, or who has festering or running sores or damaged testicles.^{(F) 21} No descendant of Aaron the priest who has any defect^(G) is to come near to present the food offerings to the Lord.^(H) He has a defect; he must not come near to offer the food of his God.^(I)

⁸ The third generation of children born to them may enter the assembly of the Lord.

²² Do not offer to the Lord the blind, the injured or the maimed, or anything with warts or festering or running sores. Do not place any of these on the altar as a food offering presented to the Lord. ²³ You may, however, present as a freewill offering an ox^[a] or a sheep that is deformed or stunted, but it will not be accepted in fulfillment of a vow. ²⁴ You must not offer to the Lord an animal whose testicles are bruised, crushed, torn or cut.^(A) You must not do this in your own land,