³ So now let us make a covenant with our God to send away all these wives and their children, according to the counsel of my lord and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God, and let it be done according to the law.^(A)

⁴ Then all who trembled at the words of the God of Israel because of the faithlessness of the returned exiles gathered around me while I sat appalled until the evening sacrifice.^(A)

² and when the Lord your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you must utterly destroy them. Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy.^{(A) 3} Do not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons,^(B)

¹² To the rest I say—I and not the Lord—that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her.^{(A) 13} And if any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce the husband.

Those Who Signed the Covenant

^38 [a]Because of all this we make a firm agreement in writing, and on that sealed document are inscribed the names of our officials, our Levites, and our priests.^(A)

¹² The hand of God was also on Judah to give them one heart to do what the king and the officials commanded by the word of the Lord.

¹² to enter into the covenant of the Lord your God, sworn by an oath, which the Lord your God is making with you today,

⁴ and said to him, “Go through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of those who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it.”^(A)