Ezra 9:1-3

Contemporary English Version

Ezra Condemns Mixed Marriages

9 Later the Jewish leaders came to me^[a] and said:

Many Israelites, including priests and Levites, are living just like the people around them. They are even guilty of some of the horrible sins of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites.

² Some Israelite men have married foreign women and have let their sons do the same thing. Our own officials and leaders were the first to commit this disgusting sin, and now God's holy people are mixed with foreigners.

³ This news made me so angry that I ripped my clothes and tore hair from my head and beard. Then I just sat in shock