“Now when these things were done, the princes came to me, saying, The people of Israel, and the priests, and the Levites, have not separated themselves from the people of the lands, doing according to their abominations, even of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites.”
From the time they came home under Zerubbabel until the coming of Ezra, they had degenerated contrary to the Law of God, and married where it was not lawful, Deut. 7:3 .