interfaith relationships

¹³And if any woman has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce her husband. ¹⁴For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through the believing wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through the believing husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, whereas instead they are holy. ¹⁵But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart. For a brother or sister cannot be made subject to servitude in this way. For God has called us to peace. ¹⁶And how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?

³Will two walk together, unless they have agreed to do so?

²⁹When the Lord your God will have abolished before your face the nations, which you shall enter so as to possess them, and when you will possess them and live in their land, ³⁰be careful that you do not imitate them, after they have been overturned at your arrival, and that you do not seek their ceremonies, saying: ‘Just as these nations have worshipped their gods, so also will I worship.’ ³¹You shall not act in like manner toward the Lord your God. For they have done to their gods all the abominations that the Lord spurns, offering their sons and daughters, and burning them with fire. ³²What I command to you, this only shall you do, for the Lord. You may neither add nor subtract anything.”

¹⁴Do not choose to bear the yoke with unbelievers. For how can justice be a participant with iniquity? Or how can the fellowship of light be a participant with darkness?

¹²And there is no salvation in any other. For there is no other name under heaven given to men, by which it is necessary for us to be saved.”

²⁵And I put them under oath, and I cursed them. And I struck some of their men, and I shaved off their hair, and I made them swear to God that they would not give their daughters to their sons, nor take their daughters for their sons, nor for themselves, saying: ²⁶“Did not Solomon, king of Israel, sin in this kind of thing? And certainly, among many nations, there was no king similar to him, and he was beloved of his God, and God set him as king over all of Israel. And yet foreign women led even him into sin! ²⁷So how could we disobey and do all this great evil, so that we would transgress against our God, and take foreign wives?”

²And Shecaniah, the son of Jehiel, from the sons of Elam, responded and said to Ezra: “We have sinned against our God, and have taken foreign wives from the peoples of the land. And now, if there is repentance within Israel over this, ³let us strike a pact with the Lord our God, so that we may cast aside all the wives, and those who have been born from them, in accord with the will of the Lord, and of those who fear the precept of the Lord our God. So let it be done, according to the law.

¹¹Judah has transgressed, and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has contaminated the sanctified of the Lord, which he loved, and has held the daughter of a strange god.

¹⁶But because you are lukewarm and are neither cold nor hot, I will begin to vomit you out of my mouth.

³And you shall not associate with them in marriage. You shall not give your daughter to his son, nor accept his daughter for your son.

¹²Beware that you do not ever join in friendship with the inhabitants of that land, which may be your ruin. ¹³But destroy their altars, break their statues, and cut down their sacred groves. ¹⁴Do not be willing to worship any strange god. The jealous Lord is his name. God is a rival. ¹⁵Do not enter into a pact with the men of those regions, lest, when they will have fornicated with their gods and worshiped their idols, someone might call upon you to eat from what was immolated. ¹⁶Neither shall you take a wife for your son from their daughters, lest, after they themselves have fornicated, they may cause your sons also to fornicate with their gods.

⁷Similarly, you husbands should live with them in accord with knowledge, bestowing honor on the female as the weaker vessel and as co-heirs of the life of grace, so that your prayers may not be hindered.