Even the leaders of the people and of the priests committed many acts of sacrilege and lawlessness beyond all the unclean deeds of all the nations and polluted the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem—the temple that God had made holy.

And some joined them from the other nations of the land. And they erected the altar in its place, for all the peoples of the land were hostile to them and were stronger than they, and they offered sacrifices at the proper times and burnt offerings to the Lord morning and evening.

But the nations of the land besieged those in Judea, cut off their supplies, and hindered their building,

The people of Israel who had returned from exile ate it, all those who had separated themselves from the abominations of the nations of the land and sought the Lord.

“The nation of Israel and the rulers and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the foreign nations of the land and their pollutions, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Edomites.

For they and their sons have married the daughters of these people, and the holy seed has been mixed with the foreign nations of the land, and from the beginning of this matter the leaders and the nobles have been sharing in this iniquity.”

and gave us such a root as this, but we turned back again to transgress your law by mixing with the uncleanness of the nations of the land.

Then Shecaniah son of Jehiel, one of the men of Israel, called out and said to Ezra, “We have sinned against the Lord and have married foreign women from the nations of the land, but even now there is hope for Israel.

and do his will; separate yourselves from the nations of the land and from your foreign wives.”