interracial marriage

¹Then he arrived at Derbe and Lystra. And behold, a certain disciple named Timothy was there, the son of a faithful Jewish woman, his father a Gentile.

⁴³Yet, because you saw the iron mingled with pottery from the earth, they will indeed be combined together with the offspring of man, but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron cannot be mixed with earthenware.

¹And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses, because of his wife, an Ethiopian, ²and they said: “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Has he not also spoken similarly to us?” And when the Lord had heard this, ³(for Moses was a man exceedingly meek, beyond all the men who were living upon the earth) ⁴immediately he spoke to him, and to Aaron and Miriam, “Go out, you three only, to the tabernacle of the covenant.” And when they had gone out, ⁵the Lord descended in a column of cloud, and he stood at the entrance of the tabernacle, calling to Aaron and Miriam. And when they had advanced, ⁶he said to them: “Listen to my words. If there will be among you a prophet of the Lord, I will appear to him in a vision, or I will speak to him through a dream.

²⁸There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither servant nor free; there is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.

¹⁹Observe my laws. You shall not cause your cattle to breed with other kinds of animals. You shall not sow your field with diverse seeds. You shall not be clothed with a garment which has been woven from two things.

¹²For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek. For the same Lord is over all, richly in all who call upon him. ¹³For all those who have called upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

⁸Whoever does not love, does not know God. For God is love.

⁹You shall not sow your vineyard with another seed, lest both the seed that you have sown and what springs forth from the vineyard be sanctified together. ¹⁰You shall not till with an ox and a donkey at the same time. ¹¹You shall not wear a vestment which has been woven from both wool and linen.

¹²Now therefore, you should not give your daughters to their sons, nor should you receive their daughters for your sons. And you should not seek their peace, nor their prosperity, even forever. So shall you be strengthened, and so shall you eat the good things of the land, and have your sons as your heirs, even for all time.

¹⁶And I have other sheep that are not of this fold, and I must lead them. They shall hear my voice, and there shall be one sheepfold and one shepherd.

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? ¹⁵And how can Christ join together with Belial? Or what part do the faithful have with the unfaithful? ¹⁶And what consensus does the temple of God have with idols? For you are the temple of the living God, just as God says: “I will dwell with them, and I will walk among them. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. ¹⁷Because of this, you must depart from their midst and be separate, says the Lord. And do not touch what is unclean. ¹⁸Then I will accept you. And I will be a Father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.”

¹“When the Lord your God will have led you to the land, which you will enter so as to possess it, and when he will have destroyed many nations before you, the Hittite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, seven nations much more numerous than you, and more robust than you, ²and when the Lord your God will have delivered them to you, you shall strike them down unto utter annihilation. You shall not enter into a pact with them, nor shall you show any pity to them. 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. ⁴For she will seduce your son, so that he will not follow me, and so that he will instead serve foreign gods. And the fury of the Lord will be enraged, and he will quickly destroy you. ⁵So instead, you shall do this to them: overturn their altars, and break their statues, and cut down their sacred groves, and burn up their graven images. ⁶For you are a holy people to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you so that you would be his particular people out of all the peoples who are upon the earth.

¹¹For there is no favoritism with God.

²⁴the God who made the world and all that is in it, the One who is the Lord of heaven and earth, who does not live in temples made with hands. ²⁵Neither is he served by the hands of men, as if in need of anything, since it is he who gives to all things life and breath and all else. ²⁶And he has made, out of one, every family of man: to live upon the face of the entire earth, determining the appointed seasons and the limits of their habitation,

¹⁴For he is our peace. He made the two into one, by dissolving the intermediate wall of separation, of opposition, by his flesh, ¹⁵emptying the law of commandments by decree, so that he might join these two, in himself, into one new man, making peace ¹⁶and reconciling both to God, in one body, through the cross, destroying this opposition in himself. ¹⁷And upon arriving, he evangelized peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near. ¹⁸For by him, we both have access, in the one Spirit, to the Father. ¹⁹Now, therefore, you are no longer visitors and new arrivals. Instead, you are citizens among the saints in the household of God,