²³ Moreover, in those days I saw men of Judah who had married^(A) women from Ashdod, Ammon and Moab.^(B)

Ezra’s Prayer About Intermarriage

9 After these things had been done, the leaders came to me and said, “The people of Israel, including the priests and the Levites, have not kept themselves separate^(A) from the neighboring peoples with their detestable practices, like those of the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites,^(B) Ammonites,^(C) Moabites,^(D) Egyptians and Amorites.^{(E) 2} They have taken some of their daughters^(F) as wives for themselves and their sons, and have mingled^(G) the holy race^(H) with the peoples around them. And the leaders and officials have led the way in this unfaithfulness.”^(I)

¹⁰ Then Ezra^(A) the priest stood up and said to them, “You have been unfaithful; you have married foreign women, adding to Israel’s guilt.^(B)

Warning Against Idolatry

¹⁴ Do not be yoked together^(A) with unbelievers.^(B) For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?^(C)

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)

⁴⁴ All these had married foreign women, and some of them had children by these wives.^[a]

⁷ But when Sanballat, Tobiah,^(A) the Arabs, the Ammonites and the people of Ashdod heard that the repairs to Jerusalem’s walls had gone ahead and that the gaps were being closed, they were very angry.