After having led the effort to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and rededicate the people to the Law of Moses, Nehemiah returns to King Artaxerxes as he had promised. But when he returned later he found that the people had already reverted to their old ways... marrying Moabites and Ammonites, failing to pay the tithes to the Temple, despoiling the new Temple... what's a good leader to do?
About the same time I realized that some of the men of Judah had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. Furthermore, half their children spoke the language of Ashdod or of some other people and could not speak the language of Judah at all. So I confronted them and called down curses on them. I beat some of them and pulled out their hair [...] One of the sons of Joiada son of Eliashib the high priest had married a daughter of Sanballat the Horonite, so I banished him from my presence.A good leader pulls the kids hair out... or the parents... hmmm! We are an ungrateful people, prone to wander and sin.
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