³ Do not intermarry with them.^(A) Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, ⁴ for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods,^(B) and the Lord’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy^(C) you.

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)

²³ Moreover, in those days I saw men of Judah who had married^(A) women from Ashdod, Ammon and Moab.^{(B) 24} Half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod or the language of one of the other peoples, and did not know how to speak the language^(C) of Judah. ²⁵ I rebuked them and called curses down on them. I beat some of the men and pulled out their hair. I made them take an oath^(D) in God’s name and said: “You are not to give your daughters in marriage to their sons, nor are you to take their daughters in marriage for your sons or for yourselves.^{(E) 26} Was it not because of marriages like these that Solomon king of Israel sinned? Among the many nations there was no king like him.^(F) He was loved by his God,^(G) and God made him king over all Israel, but even he was led into sin by foreign women.^{(H) 27} Must we hear now that you too are doing all this terrible wickedness and are being unfaithful to our God by marrying^(I) foreign women?”

²⁸ One of the sons of Joiada son of Eliashib^(J) the high priest was son-in-law to Sanballat^(K) the Horonite. And I drove him away from me.

²⁹ Remember^(L) them, my God, because they defiled the priestly office and the covenant of the priesthood and of the Levites.^(M)

³⁰ So I purified the priests and the Levites of everything foreign,^(N) and assigned them duties, each to his own task.