Abraham got up and bowed down to the local people, the sons of Heth.

Abraham bowed before the local people

Rebekah also told herself, "Heth's daughters are making me tired of living. If Jacob marries one of Heth's daughters, and she turns out to be just like these other local women, what kind of life would there be left for me?"

Later, Isaac called Jacob and blessed him, instructing him, "Don't marry a wife from the local Canaanite women.

So he returned to Judah, and said, “I cannot find her; also the local men said, ‘There was no prostitute around here.’”

Three days after they made the treaty with them, the Israelites found out they were from the local area and lived nearby.

The two of them traveled until they came to Bethlehem. When they entered Bethlehem, the whole town was excited about their arrival and the local women exclaimed, “Can this be Naomi?”

They established the altar on its foundations, even though they were in terror of the local peoples, and they offered burnt offerings on it to the Lord, both the morning and the evening offerings.

Then the local people began to discourage the people of Judah and to dishearten them from building.

Now when these things had been completed, the leaders approached me and said, "The people of Israel, the priests, and the Levites have not separated themselves from the local residents who practice detestable things similar to those of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites.

Indeed, they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race has become intermingled with the local residents. Worse still, the leaders and the officials have been at the forefront of all of this!"

From the days of our fathers until this very day our guilt has been great. Because of our iniquities we, along with our kings and priests, have been delivered over by the local kings to sword, captivity, plunder, and embarrassment -- right up to the present time.

which you commanded us through your servants the prophets with these words: 'The land that you are entering to possess is a land defiled by the impurities of the local residents! With their abominations they have filled it from one end to the other with their filthiness.

Then Shecaniah son of Jehiel, from the descendants of Elam, addressed Ezra: "We have been unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women from the local peoples. Nonetheless, there is still hope for Israel in this regard.

Now give praise to the Lord God of your fathers, and do his will. Separate yourselves from the local residents and from these foreign wives."

The local officials did not know where I had gone or what I had done I informed neither the Judeans, nor the priests, nor the nobles, nor the officials, nor any of the rest who would be doing the work.

Do you people think that I am some local deity and not the transcendent God?" the Lord asks.