Nehemiah

²⁴and their children spoke half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews’ language, but according to the language of each people. ²⁵I contended with them, and cursed them, and struck certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, “You shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor take their daughters for your sons, or for yourselves. ²⁶Didn’t Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? Yet among many nations there was no king like him, and he was loved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel. Nevertheless foreign women caused even him to sin. ²⁷Shall we then listen to you to do all this great evil, to trespass against our God in marrying foreign women?” ²⁸One of the sons of Joiada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, was son-in-law to Sanballat the Horonite; therefore I chased him from me. ²⁹Remember them, my God, because they have defiled the priesthood, and the covenant of the priesthood and of the Levites. ³⁰Thus I cleansed them from all foreigners, and appointed duties for the priests and for the Levites, everyone in his work;