Nehemiah 10:30
10:30 “We will not give our daughters in marriage to the neighboring peoples, and we will not take their daughters in marriage for our sons.
Ezra 9:2
9:2 Indeed, they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race
1 has become intermingled with the local residents. Worse still, the leaders and the officials have been at the forefront of all of this!”
Ezra 9:11-12
9:11 which you commanded us through your servants the prophets with these words:
2 ‘The land that you are entering to possess is a land defiled by the impurities of the local residents!
3 With their abominations they have filled it from one end to the other with their filthiness.
9:12 Therefore do not give your daughters in marriage to their sons, and do not take their daughters in marriage for your sons. Do not ever seek their peace or welfare, so that you may be strong and may eat the good of the land and may leave it as an inheritance for your children
4 forever.’
Ezra 10:10
10:10 Then Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have behaved in an unfaithful manner by taking foreign wives! This has contributed to the guilt of Israel.
Ezra 10:44
10:44 All these had taken foreign wives, and some of them also had children by these women. 5
Ezra 10:2
10:2 Then Shecaniah son of Jehiel, from the descendants of Elam,
6 addressed Ezra:
“We have been unfaithful to our God by marrying 7 foreign women from the local peoples. 8 Nonetheless, there is still hope for Israel in this regard. 9
Colossians 1:14
1:14 in whom we have redemption,
10 the forgiveness of sins.
1 tn Heb “the holy seed,” referring to the Israelites as God’s holy people.
2 tn Heb “through your servants the prophets, saying.”
3 tn Heb “the peoples of the lands.”
4 tn Heb “sons”; cf. KJV, NAB, NIV, NLT “children”; NCV, TEV “descendants.”
5 tc The final statement in v. 44 is difficult in terms of both its syntax and its meaning. The present translation attempts to make sense of the MT. But the passage may have undergone corruption in the transmission process. One proposal is that the text should be emended to read “and they sent these wives and children away” (cf. NAB, NRSV, TEV, CEV).
6 tc The translation reads with the Qere, many medieval Hebrew MSS, the LXX, the Syriac Peshitta, and Vulgate עֵילָם (’elam, “Elam”) rather than the reading עוֹלָם (’olam, “eternity”) found in the MT.
7 tn Heb “in that we have given a dwelling to.” So also in vv. 14, 17, 18.
8 tn Heb “the peoples of the lands.”
9 tn Heb “upon this.”
10 tc διὰ τοῦ αἵματος αὐτοῦ (dia tou {aimato" autou, “through his blood”) is read at this juncture by several minuscule mss (614 630 1505 2464 al) as well as a few, mostly secondary, versional and patristic witnesses. But the reading was prompted by the parallel in Eph 1:7 where the wording is solid. If these words had been in the original of Colossians, why would scribes omit them here but not in Eph 1:7? Further, the testimony on behalf of the shorter reading is quite overwhelming: {א A B C D F G Ψ 075 0150 6 33 1739 1881 Ï latt co as well as several other versions and fathers}. The conviction that “through his blood” is not authentic in Col 1:14 is as strong as the conviction that these words are authentic in Eph 1:7.