Ezra 10:11-19
Read Ezra 10 in full →11“So now, amake confession to Yahweh, the God of your fathers, and bdo His will; and cseparate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from the foreign wives.” 12Then all the assembly answered and said with a loud voice, “This is so! As you have said, so it is 1our duty to do. 13“But there are many people; it is the rainy season, and we are not able to stand outside. Nor can the task be done in one or two days, for we have transgressed greatly in this matter. 14“Let our princes stand in for the whole assembly, and let all those in our cities who have married foreign wives come at set times, together with the elders and judges of each city, until the aburning anger of our God on account of this matter is turned away from us.” 15However, Jonathan the son of Asahel and Jahzeiah the son of Tikvah stood against this, with Meshullam and Shabbethai the Levite helping them.
16But the exiles did so. And 1Ezra the priest separated out men who were heads of fathers’ households for each of their father’s households, all of them by name. So they 2convened on the first day of the tenth month to investigate the matter. 17And they completed investigating all the men who had married foreign wives by the first day of the first month.