Remember Me for Good

23Also in those days I saw the Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammonite women, and Moabite women.

24And half of their children spoke Ashdodite, and they were not able to speak Judean, but only the language of one people or another.

25So I contended with them and cursed them, and I struck some of the men and pulled out their hair, and I made them swear by God: “You shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor take any of their daughters for your sons or for yourselves.”

26Was it not because of these things that Solomon king of Israel sinned? Yet among the many nations there was no king like him, and he was loved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel. Even him foreign women caused to sin.

27Should we then listen to you and do all this great evil, acting unfaithfully against our God by marrying foreign women?

28And one of the sons of Joiada son of Eliashib the high priest was a son-in-law of Sanballat the Horonite, so I drove him away from me.

29Remember them, my God, because they have defiled the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites.

30So I cleansed them from everything foreign, and I assigned duties for the priests and for the Levites, each in his work,

31And for the offering of wood at appointed times, and for the firstfruits—remember me, my God, for good.