^3 (A)Nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son.

² from the nations of whom the Lord had said to the children of Israel, ^(A)“You shall not intermarry with them, nor they with you. Surely they will turn away your hearts after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love.

¹² Or else, if indeed you do ^(A)go back, and cling to the remnant of these nations—these that remain among you—and ^(B)make marriages with them, and go in to them and they to you, ¹³ know for certain that ^(C)the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations from before you. ^(D)But they shall be snares and traps to you, and scourges on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land which the Lord your God has given you.

¹⁵ lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they ^(A)play the harlot with their gods and make sacrifice to their gods, and one of them ^(B)invites you and you ^(C)eat of his sacrifice, ¹⁶ and you take of ^(D)his daughters for your sons, and his daughters ^(E)play the harlot with their gods and make your sons play the harlot with their gods.

^14 (A)Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For ^(B)what ^[a]fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what ^[b]communion has light with darkness? ¹⁵ And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? ¹⁶ And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For ^(C)you^[c] are the temple of the living God. As God has said:

¹⁷ Therefore

²³ In those days I also saw Jews who ^(A)had married women of ^(B)Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. ²⁴ And half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod, and could not speak the language of Judah, but spoke according to the language of one or the other people.

²⁵ So I ^(C)contended with them and ^[a]cursed them, struck some of them and pulled out their hair, and made them ^(D)swear by God, saying, “You shall not give your daughters as wives to their sons, nor take their daughters for your sons or yourselves. ^26 (E)Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? Yet among many nations there was no king like him, ^(F)who was beloved of his God; and God made him king over all Israel. ^(G)Nevertheless pagan women caused even him to sin. ²⁷ Should we then hear of your doing all this great evil, ^(H)transgressing against our God by marrying pagan women?”

⁶ And ^(A)they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons; and they served their gods.

Othniel

⁷ So the children of Israel did ^(B)evil in the sight of the Lord. They ^(C)forgot the Lord their God, and served the Baals and ^[a]Asherahs.

Intermarriage with Pagans

9 When these things were done, the leaders came to me, saying, “The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not ^(A)separated themselves from the peoples of the lands, ^(B)with respect to the abominations of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. ² For they have ^(C)taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and their sons, so that the ^(D)holy seed is ^(E)mixed with the peoples of those lands. Indeed, the hand of the leaders and rulers has been foremost in this ^[a]trespass.”

² that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they ^(A)took wives for themselves of all whom they chose.

³ And the Lord said, ^(B)“My Spirit shall not ^(C)strive^[a] with man forever, ^(D)for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.”