And they took the daughters of these people in marriage, gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their gods.
Parallel translations
- WEB They took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their own daughters to their sons and served their gods.
- KJV And they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons, and served their gods.
- NKJV And they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons; and they served their gods.
- NASB and they took their daughters for themselves as wives, and gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their gods.
- NLT and they intermarried with them. Israelite sons married their daughters, and Israelite daughters were given in marriage to their sons. And the Israelites served their gods.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Israel intermarries with these nations and serves their gods. It matters as the very compromise God had warned would ensnare them.
Overview
Israel takes and gives daughters in marriage to the pagan nations and adopts their idolatry, exactly the snare God foretold. Intermarriage led to shared worship of false gods. This fulfills the warning of chapter two and shows how unholy alliances draw God's people into idolatry, a danger Scripture consistently warns against.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 6
- Exod 34:16And when you take some of their daughters as brides for your sons, their daughters will prostitute themselves to their gods and cause your sons to do the same.
- Deut 7:3–4Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons,
- 1 Kgs 11:1–5King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh—women of Moab, Ammon, Edom, and Sidon, as well as Hittite women.
- Neh 13:23–27In those days I also saw Jews who had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab.
- Ezra 9:11–12that You gave through Your servants the prophets, saying: ‘The land that you are entering to possess is a land polluted by the impurity of its peoples and the abominations with which they have filled it from end to end.
- Ezek 16:3and tell her that this is what the Lord GOD says to Jerusalem: Your origin and your birth were in the land of the Canaanites. Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.
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Christ at the center
Israel's cycle of sin and rescue through flawed deliverers cries out for a Savior who never fails — the true and final Judge and Deliverer who saves his people not for a season but forever.
How Judges 3:6 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.