23 Even in those days I saw the Jews who took wives from the Ashdod women, the Ammonite women, and the Moabite women;

24 And therefore their sons speak half the language of Ashdod, or the language of other nations, and do not know how to speak Hebrew.

25 And I rebuked them for this, and cursed them, and I smote some of the men, and tore their hair, and adjured them by God, that they should not give their daughters for their sons, nor take their daughters for their sons and for themselves.

26 Was it not because of them, I said, that Solomon king of Israel sinned? Many nations did not have a king like him. He was loved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel; and yet foreign women led him into sin too.

27 And can we hear of you, that you do all these great evils, that you sin against our God, taking foreign wives into their cohabitation?

28 And of the sons of Jehoiada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, one was the son-in-law of Sanballat, the Khoronite. I drove him away from me.

29 Remember them, O my God, that they have profaned the priesthood and the priestly and Levitical covenant.

30 Thus I cleansed them from all foreign things, and restored the offices of the priests and the Levites, every man in his work,

31 and the delivery of wood at the appointed times and firstfruits. Remember me, O my God, for my good!

Book of Esther

[…]

[In the second year of the reign of Artaxerxes the Great, on the first day of the month of Nisan, Mordecai, the son of Jairus, the Shemeites, the Kisses, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Judean who dwelt in the city of Shushan was a great man, who served in the king's palace, and he was one of the captives whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took captive from Jerusalem with Jeconiah king of Judah. thunder and earthquake and confusion on the earth; And behold, two great serpents came out, ready to fight with each other; and great was their howl, and because of their howling all the nations prepared for war, to smite the people of the righteous; and behold, a day of darkness and gloom, sorrow and distress, suffering and great confusion on earth; And all the righteous people were troubled, fearing their own troubles, and they prepared to perish, and cried out to the Lord. From their cry sprang up, as from a small spring, a great river with a great deal of water; and the light and the sun shone, and the humble were lifted up, and destroyed the vain. Mordecai, awakening from this dream, which represented what God wanted to accomplish, kept this dream in his heart and desired to understand it in all its parts, until nightfall. And Mordecai dwelt in the palace with Gabathah and Terah, the two royal eunuchs who guarded the palace, and heard their conversations, and inquired into their designs, and knew that they were preparing to lay hands on king Ahasuerus, and reported them to the king. and the king tortured these two eunuchs, and when they confessed, they were executed. The king wrote down the event as a keepsake, and Mordecai recorded the event. And the king commanded Mordecai to serve in the palace, and gave him gifts for it. And Haman the son of Amadath, the Bugeite, was then noble, and he sought to do evil to Mordecai and his people for the sake of the king's two eunuchs.]

Chapter 1

1 And it came to pass in the days of Artaxerxes, that this Artaxerxes reigned over a hundred and twenty-seven provinces, from India to Ethiopia,