20. Once or twice the traders and sellers of all kinds of merchandise spent the night outside Jerusalem.
21. But I warned them: "Why are you spending the night by the wall? If you do that again, I will lay hands on you!" At that point, they stopped coming on the Sabbath.
22. I also commanded the Levites to purify themselves and to come and guard the gates in order to keep the Sabbath day holy.Remember this also in my favor, my God, and spare me according to the greatness of your mercy.
23. Also in those days I saw Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab.
24. Half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod or the language of various peoples; they couldn’t speak the language of Judah.
25. So I scolded them and cursed them, and beat some of them, and pulled out their hair. I also made them swear a solemn pledge in the name of God, saying, "You won’t give your daughters to their sons in marriage, or take their daughters in marriage for your sons or yourselves.
26. Didn’t Israel’s King Solomon sin on account of such women? Among the many nations there was no king like him. He was well loved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel. Yet foreign wives led even him into sin!
27. Should we then listen to you and do all this great evil, acting unfaithfully toward our God by marrying foreign women?"
28. Now one of the sons of Joiada son of the high priest Eliashib was a son-in-law of Sanballat the Horonite. So I chased him away from me.
29. Remember them, my God, because they have defiled the priesthood and the covenant of the priests and the Levites!
30. So I purified them of everything foreign and established the services of the priests and Levites with specific duties for each person.