22. Then I instructed the Levites to purify themselves and guard the gates in order to keep the Sabbath day holy. Remember me for this also, my God, and look on me with compassion in keeping with Your abundant, faithful love.
23. In those days I also saw Jews who had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab.
24. Half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod or the language of one of the other peoples but could not speak Hebrew.
25. I rebuked them, cursed them, beat some of their men, and pulled out their hair. I forced them to take an oath before God and said: “You must not give your daughters in marriage to their sons or take their daughters as wives for your sons or yourselves!
26. Didn’t King Solomon of Israel sin in matters like this? There was not a king like him among many nations. He was loved by his God and God made him king over all Israel, yet foreign women drew him into sin.
27. Why then should we hear about you doing all this terrible evil and acting unfaithfully against our God by marrying foreign women? ”
28. Even one of the sons of Jehoiada, son of Eliashib the high priest, had become a son-in-law to Sanballat the Horonite. So I drove him away from me.
29. Remember them, my God, for defiling the priesthood as well as the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites.
30. So I purified them from everything foreign and assigned specific duties to each of the priests and Levites.