Malachi 2:11

¹⁴Don’t be unequally yoked with unbelievers, for what fellowship do righteousness and iniquity have? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness? ¹⁵What agreement does Christ have with Belial? Or what portion does a believer have with an unbeliever? ¹⁶What agreement does a temple of God have with idols? For you are a temple of the living God. Even as God said, “I will dwell in them and walk in them. I will be their God and they will be my people.”¹⁷Therefore “‘Come out from among them, and be separate,’ says the Lord. ‘Touch no unclean thing. I will receive you.¹⁸I will be to you a Father. You will be to me sons and daughters,’ says the Lord Almighty.”

¹Now when these things were done, the princes came near to me, saying, “The people of Israel, the priests, and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands, following their abominations, even those of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. ²For they have taken of their daughters for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy offspring have mixed themselves with the peoples of the lands. Yes, the hand of the princes and rulers has been chief in this trespass.”

⁸But for the cowardly, unbelieving, sinners,abominable, ^[+] murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers,^[+] idolaters, and all liars, their part is in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

²⁶You shall be holy to me, for I, the LORD, am holy, and have set you apart from the peoples, that you should be mine.

⁵Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be my own possession from among all peoples; for all the earth is mine; ⁶and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.”

²³In those days I also saw the Jews who had married women of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab; 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, cursed them, struck certain of them, 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.

³⁴They didn’t destroy the peoples, as the LORD commanded them, ³⁵but mixed themselves with the nations, and learned their works. ³⁶They served their idols, which became a snare to them. ³⁷Yes, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons. ³⁸They shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan. The land was polluted with blood. ³⁹Thus they were defiled with their works, and prostituted themselves in their deeds.

¹Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh: women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites, ²of the nations concerning which the LORD said to the children of Israel, “You shall not go among them, neither shall they come among you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon joined to these in love. ³He had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines. His wives turned his heart away. ⁴When Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods; and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father was. ⁵For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. ⁶Solomon did that which was evil in the LORD’s sight, and didn’t go fully after the LORD, as David his father did. ⁷Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, on the mountain that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech the abomination of the children of Ammon. ⁸So he did for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods.

³You shall not make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to his son, nor shall you take his daughter for your son. ⁴For that would turn away your sons from following me, that they may serve other gods. So the LORD’s anger would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. ⁵But you shall deal with them like this: you shall break down their altars, dash their pillars in pieces, cut down their Asherah poles, and burn their engraved images with fire. ⁶For you are a holy people to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, above all peoples who are on the face of the earth.

²Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, answered Ezra, “We have trespassed against our God, and have married foreign women of the peoples of the land. Yet now there is hope for Israel concerning this thing.