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The books of Ezra and Nehemiah are about the people of God as they prepared to return to their homeland from the 70 year captivity in Babylon.
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Unfortunately, many of them had taken foreign women to wed, which was strictly forbidden by God…
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Listen… “We have trespassed against our God, and have taken strange wives of the people of the land:” Ezra 2:10
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This was a big problem for those people back then. God was very wroth against them because of this great sin.
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Listen again…”33:55 But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you; then it shall come to pass, that those which ye let remain of them [shall be] pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell.
33:56 Moreover it shall come to pass, [that] I shall do unto you, as I thought to do unto them.”
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So here is a direct command for God’s people to not be mingle with unbelievers. And the penalty for disobedience is very severe.
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But the people of God back in Ezra’s and Nehemiah’s day made a tough decision
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Listen
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yet now there is hope in Israel concerning this thing. We have trespassed against our God, and have taken strange wives of the people of the land: yet now there is hope in Israel concerning this thing.
10:3 Now therefore let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives, and such as are born of them, according to the counsel of my lord, and of those that tremble at the commandment of our God; and let it be done according to the law” Ezra
9:2 And the seed of Israel separated themselves from all strangers, and stood and confessed their sins, and the iniquities of their fathers.Nehemiah
10:28 And the rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the porters, the singers, the Nethinims, and all they that had separated themselves from the people of the lands unto the law of God, their wives, their sons, and their daughters, every one having knowledge, and having understanding;
10:29 They clave to their brethren, their nobles, and entered into a curse, and into an oath, to walk in God’s law, which was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the LORD our Lord, and his judgments and his statutes;
10:30 And that we would not give our daughters unto the people of the land, nor take their daughters for our sons:Nehemiah
13:23 In those days also saw I Jews [that] had married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, [and] of Moab:
13:24 And their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews’ language, but according to the language of each people.Nehemiah
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