These people searched for their ancestral registrations but they couldn't be located. Accordingly, they were assigned an "unclean" status and couldn't be priests.

Accordingly, issue an order to force these men to cease their work so that this city is not rebuilt until you receive further notice from me.

We asked the elders, "Who authorized you to build this Temple and to reinforce these walls?"

"And Cyrus told him, "Take these utensils, go to Jerusalem, and carry them to the Temple, after the Temple of God has been built in its appropriate place.'

Furthermore, I hereby decree what you are to do for the Jewish leaders who are building this Temple of God: you are to pay the expenses of these men out of the king's assets from taxes collected beyond the River so that they are not hindered.

These are the leaders of the families listed among those who left Babylon with me during the reign of King Artaxerxes:

After these things occurred, certain officials approached me and said "The people of Israel, the priests, and the descendants of Levi have not separated themselves from the people of the lands or from the detestable behavior of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites,

because they and their sons have married foreign women. As a result, the holy people have mingled themselves among the nations of these lands. As a matter of fact, the senior officials and the rulers have been foremost in this sin."

should we violate your commandments by intermarrying with the nations who practice these abominations? Would you not be angry with us until you had consumed us, with not even a remnant surviving to escape?

So let's make a promise to our God by which we divorce all of these foreign wives as well as those born to them in accordance with the counsel of our Lord and of those who tremble at our God's command. Furthermore, let it be done according to the Law.

All of these had married foreign wives, and some of them had children by them.