16. People from Tyre who lived in Jerusalem were bringing in fish and all kinds of goods. They were selling them on the day of worship to the people of Judah, even in Jerusalem.
17. I reprimanded the nobles of Judah and asked them, “What is this evil thing you’re doing? How dare you treat the day of worship as unholy!
18. Isn’t this what your ancestors did, with the results that our God brought all these evils on us and on this city? Now you’re making him even more angry with Israel by treating the day of worship as unholy.”
19. Before the day of worship, when the gates of Jerusalem were cleared of traffic, I ordered the doors to be shut and not to be reopened until after the day of worship. I stationed some of my men by the gates to make sure that no loads could be brought in on the day of worship.
20. Once or twice merchants and those who sell all kinds of goods spent the night outside Jerusalem.
21. I warned them. “Why are you spending the night in front of the wall?” I asked them. “If you do it again, I’ll arrest you.” After that, they no longer came on the day of worship.
22. Then I told the Levites to cleanse themselves and guard the gates to keep the day of worship holy.⌊Nehemiah prayed,⌋ “Remember me also for this, my God, and spare me, since you are very kind.”
23. In those days I saw some Jews who had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab.
24. Half their children spoke the language of Ashdod or one of the other languages, but they couldn’t understand the language of Judah well enough to speak it.
25. So I reprimanded those Jews, cursed them, beat some of them, and pulled out their hair. I made them swear by God: “We won’t allow our daughters to marry their sons, and we won’t allow their daughters to marry us or our sons.”
26. I said, “Wasn’t it because of marriages like these that King Solomon of Israel sinned? There wasn’t a king like him among all nations. God loved him, and God made him king of all Israel. But his non-Israelite wives led him to sin.
27. Should we follow your example, commit such a serious crime against our God, and be unfaithful to him by marrying non-Israelite women?”
28. Even one of Joiada’s sons was a son-in-law of Sanballat from Beth Horon. (Joiada was the son of the chief priest Eliashib.) I chased Joiada’s son away from me.
29. ⌊Nehemiah prayed,⌋ “Remember them, my God, because they have contaminated the priestly office and the promise you made to the priests and Levites.”
30. So I cleansed them from everything that was foreign. I assigned duties to the priests and Levites. Each one had his own assignment.