Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these acts, for that is how the pagans made themselves unclean, those pagans who lived in the land before you and whom the LORD is driving out so that you can go in.

They did all these disgusting things and made the land unclean, but you must not do them. All of you, whether Israelites or foreigners living with you, must keep the LORD's laws and commands,

and then the land will not reject you, as it rejected the pagans who lived there before you.

And the LORD said, "Obey the commands I give and do not follow the practices of the people who lived in the land before you, and do not make yourselves unclean by doing any of these things. I am the LORD your God."

You do these things I hate, and then you come and stand in my presence, in my own Temple, and say, 'We are safe!'

and lends money for profit. Will he live? No, he will not. He has done all these disgusting things, and so he will die. He will be to blame for his own death.

Some commit adultery, and others seduce their daughters-in-law or their half sisters.

But cowards, traitors, perverts, murderers, the immoral, those who practice magic, those who worship idols, and all liars---the place for them is the lake burning with fire and sulfur, which is the second death."

Now, if you will obey me and keep my covenant, you will be my own people. The whole earth is mine, but you will be my chosen people,

a people dedicated to me alone, and you will serve me as priests."

You shall be holy and belong only to me, because I am the LORD and I am holy. I have set you apart from the other nations so that you would belong to me alone.

Do not marry any of them, and do not let your children marry any of them,

So then, tear down their altars, break their sacred stone pillars in pieces, cut down their symbols of the goddess Asherah, and burn their idols.

You belong to the LORD your God; he has chosen you to be his own people from among all the peoples who live on earth.

People of Israel, no god is like your God, riding in splendor across the sky, riding through the clouds to come to your aid.

So Jacob's descendants live in peace, secure in a land full of grain and wine, where dew from the sky waters the ground.

Then at Peor, God's people joined in the worship of Baal and ate sacrifices offered to dead gods.

They did not kill the heathen, as the LORD had commanded them to do,

God's people worshiped idols, and this caused their destruction.

They killed those innocent children, and the land was defiled by those murders.

Israel, you belonged to me alone; you were my sacred possession. I sent suffering and disaster on everyone who hurt you. I, the LORD, have spoken."

I brought them into a fertile land, to enjoy its harvests and its other good things. But instead they ruined my land; they defiled the country I had given them.

The priests did not ask, 'Where is the LORD?' My own priests did not know me. The rulers rebelled against me; the prophets spoke in the name of Baal and worshiped useless idols.

I planted you like a choice vine from the very best seed. But look what you have become! You are like a rotten, worthless vine.

Even if you washed with the strongest soap, I would still see the stain of your guilt.

When people had spread all over the world, and daughters were being born,

some of the heavenly beings saw that these young women were beautiful, so they took the ones they liked.

They intermarried with them and worshiped their gods.

Solomon loved many foreign women. Besides the daughter of the king of Egypt he married Hittite women and women from Moab, Ammon, Edom, and Sidon.

Solomon married seven hundred princesses and also had three hundred concubines. They made him turn away from God,

He worshiped Astarte, the goddess of Sidon, and Molech, the disgusting god of Ammon.

On the mountain east of Jerusalem he built a place to worship Chemosh, the disgusting god of Moab, and a place to worship Molech, the disgusting god of Ammon.

After all this had been done, some of the leaders of the people of Israel came and told me that the people, the priests, and the Levites had not kept themselves separate from the people in the neighboring countries of Ammon, Moab, and Egypt or from the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, and Amorites. They were doing the same disgusting things which these people did.

Jewish men were marrying foreign women, and so God's holy people had become contaminated. The leaders and officials were the chief offenders.

They told us that we were never to intermarry with those people and never to help them prosper or succeed if we wanted to enjoy the land and pass it on to our descendants forever.

Then Shecaniah son of Jehiel, of the clan of Elam, said to Ezra, "We have broken faith with God by marrying foreign women, but even so there is still hope for Israel.

At that time I also discovered that many of the Jewish men had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab.

I reprimanded the men, called down curses on them, beat them, and pulled out their hair. Then I made them take an oath in God's name that never again would they or their children intermarry with foreigners.

Are we then to follow your example and disobey our God by marrying foreign women?"

Remember, God, how those people defiled both the office of priest and the covenant you made with the priests and the Levites.

"But as soon as they entered the land at Adam, they broke the covenant I had made with them.

Do not try to work together as equals with unbelievers, for it cannot be done. How can right and wrong be partners? How can light and darkness live together?

How can God's temple come to terms with pagan idols? For we are the temple of the living God! As God himself has said, "I will make my home with my people and live among them; I will be their God, and they shall be my people."

I will be your father, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty."