Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons,

Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.

No one of illegitimate birth may enter the assembly of the LORD, nor may any of his descendants, even to the tenth generation.

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership can righteousness have with wickedness? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness?

Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

You must treat the foreigner living among you as native-born and love him as yourself, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.

But I have told you that you will inherit their land, since I will give it to you as an inheritance—a land flowing with milk and honey. I am the LORD your God, who has set you apart from the peoples.

King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh—women of Moab, Ammon, Edom, and Sidon, as well as Hittite women. These women were from the nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, for surely they will turn your hearts after their gods.” Yet Solomon clung to these women in love. He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines—and his wives turned his heart away. For when Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and he was not wholeheartedly devoted to the LORD his God, as his father David had been. Solomon followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians and Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. . . .

When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are entering to possess, and He drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you—

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made by human hands. Nor is He served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their lands. God intended that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.

For He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in His presence. In love

Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other. By Myself I have sworn; truth has gone out from My mouth, a word that will not be revoked: Every knee will bow before Me, every tongue will swear allegiance. Surely they will say of Me, ‘In the LORD alone are righteousness and strength.’” All who rage against Him will come to Him and be put to shame. In the LORD all descendants of Israel will be justified and will exult.

Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker—one clay pot among many. Does the clay ask the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say, ‘He has no hands’? Woe to him who says to his father, ‘What have you begotten?’ or to his mother, ‘What have you brought forth?’” Thus says the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker: “How dare you question Me about My sons, or instruct Me in the work of My hands? It is I who made the earth and created man upon it. It was My hands that stretched out the heavens, and I ordained all their host.

I had planted you like a choice vine from the very best seed. How could you turn yourself before Me into a rotten, wild vine?

You should have kept your feet from going bare and your throat from being thirsty. But you said, ‘It is hopeless! For I love foreign gods, and I must go after them.’

For a prostitute is a deep pit, and an adulteress is a narrow well.

Set me free and rescue me from the grasp of foreigners, whose mouths speak falsehood, whose right hands are deceitful. Then our sons will be like plants nurtured in their youth, our daughters like corner pillars carved to adorn a palace.

And Naomi took the child, placed him on her lap, and became a nurse to him. The neighbor women said, “A son has been born to Naomi,” and they named him Obed. He became the father of Jesse, the father of David. Now these are the generations of Perez: Perez was the father of Hezron, Hezron was the father of Ram, Ram was the father of Amminadab, Amminadab was the father of Nahshon, Nahshon was the father of Salmon, . . .

For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, but on the seventh day He rested. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.

For how then can it be known that Your people and I have found favor in Your sight, unless You go with us? How else will we be distinguished from all the other people on the face of the earth?”

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Now the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.

So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they took as wives whomever they chose.

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and afterward as well—when the sons of God had relations with the daughters of men. And they bore them children who became the mighty men of old, men of renown. Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was altogether evil all the time.

This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God.

Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim, saying, “Go, inspect the land, especially Jericho.” So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there. And it was reported to the king of Jericho: “Behold, some men of Israel have come here tonight to spy out the land.” So the king of Jericho sent to Rahab and said, “Bring out the men who came to you and entered your house, for they have come to spy out the whole land.” But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. So she said, “Yes, the men did come to me, but I did not know where they had come from. At dusk, when the gate was about to close, the men went out, and I do not know which way they went. Pursue them quickly, and you may catch them!” . . .

Meanwhile, Joshua told the two men who had spied out the land, “Go into the house of the prostitute and bring out the woman and all who are with her, just as you promised her.” So the young spies went in and brought out Rahab, her father and mother and brothers, and all who belonged to her. They brought out her whole family and settled them outside the camp of Israel. Then the Israelites burned up the city and everything in it. However, they put the silver and gold and articles of bronze and iron into the treasury of the LORD’s house. And Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, with her father’s household and all who belonged to her, because she hid the men Joshua had sent to spy out Jericho. So she has lived among the Israelites to this day.

Then Miriam and Aaron criticized Moses because of the Cushite woman he had married, for he had taken a Cushite wife.

Then Miriam and Aaron criticized Moses because of the Cushite woman he had married, for he had taken a Cushite wife. “Does the LORD speak only through Moses?” they said. “Does He not also speak through us?” And the LORD heard this. Now Moses was a very humble man, more so than any man on the face of the earth. And suddenly the LORD said to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, “You three, come out to the Tent of Meeting.” So the three went out, and the LORD came down in a pillar of cloud, stood at the entrance to the Tent, and summoned Aaron and Miriam. When both of them had stepped forward, . . .

And suddenly the LORD said to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, “You three, come out to the Tent of Meeting.” So the three went out, and the LORD came down in a pillar of cloud, stood at the entrance to the Tent, and summoned Aaron and Miriam. When both of them had stepped forward, He said, “Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, will reveal Myself to him in a vision; I will speak to him in a dream. But this is not so with My servant Moses; he is faithful in all My house. I speak with him face to face, clearly and not in riddles; he sees the form of the LORD. Why then were you unafraid to speak against My servant Moses?” . . .

So the anger of the LORD burned against them, and He departed. As the cloud lifted from above the Tent, suddenly Miriam became leprous, white as snow. Aaron turned toward her, saw that she was leprous, and said to Moses, “My lord, please do not hold against us this sin we have so foolishly committed. Please do not let her be like a stillborn infant whose flesh is half consumed when he comes out of his mother’s womb.” So Moses cried out to the LORD, “O God, please heal her!” . . .

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

Then Naomi’s husband Elimelech died, and she was left with her two sons, who took Moabite women as their wives, one named Orpah and the other named Ruth. And after they had lived in Moab about ten years,