20. So the merchants and sellers of all kinds of wares lodged outside Jerusalem once or twice.
21. But I reproved and warned them, saying, Why do you lodge by the wall? If you do so again, I will lay hands on you. Then they stopped coming on the Sabbath.
22. And I commanded the Levites to cleanse themselves and come and guard the gates to keep the Sabbath day holy. O my God, [earnestly] remember me concerning this also and spare me according to the greatness of Your mercy and loving-kindness.
23. In those days also I saw Jews who had married wives from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab.
24. And their children spoke half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak the Hebrew, but in the language of each people.
25. And I contended with them and reviled them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair and made them swear by God, saying, You shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves.
26. Did not Solomon king of Israel act treacherously against God and miss the mark on account of such women? Among many nations there was no king like him. He was loved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel; yet strange women even caused him to sin [when he was old he turned treacherously away from the Lord to other gods, and God rent his kingdom from him]. [I Kings 11:1-11.]
27. Shall we then listen to you to do all this great evil and act treacherously against our God by marrying strange (heathen) women?
28. One of the sons of Joiada son of Eliashib the high priest was son-in-law to Sanballat the Horonite; therefore I chased him from me.
29. O my God, [earnestly] remember them, because they have defiled the priesthood and the covenant of the priests and Levites.
30. Thus I cleansed them from everything foreign (heathen), and I defined the duties of the priests and Levites, everyone in his work;
31. And I provided for the wood offering at appointed times, and for the firstfruits. O my God, [earnestly] remember me for good and imprint me [on Your heart]!