1Now while Ezra was making his prayer and his statement of wrongdoing, weeping and falling down before the house of God, a very great number of men and women and children out of Israel came together round him: for the people were weeping bitterly.
2And Shecaniah, the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, answering, said to Ezra, We have done evil against our God, and have taken as our wives strange women of the peoples of the land: but still there is hope for Israel in this question.
3Let us now make an agreement with our God to put away all the wives and all their children, if it seems right to my lord and to those who go in fear of the words of our God; and let it be done in keeping with the law.
4Up, now! for this is your business, and we are with you; take heart and do it.
5Then Ezra got up, and made the chiefs of the priests and the Levites and all Israel take an oath that they would do this. So they took an oath.
6Then Ezra got up from before the house of God and went into the room of Jehohanan, the son of Eliashib; but when he came there, he took no food or drink, for he was sorrowing for the sin of those who had come back.
7And they made a public statement through all Judah and Jerusalem, to all those who had come back, that they were to come together to Jerusalem;
8And that if anyone did not come before three days were past, as ordered by the rulers and the responsible men, all his goods would be put under the curse, and he himself would be cut off from the meeting of the people who had come back.
9Then all the men of Judah and Benjamin came together to Jerusalem before three days were past; it was the ninth month, on the twentieth day of the month; and all the people were seated in the wide square in front of the house of God, shaking with fear because of this business and because of the great rain.
10And Ezra the priest got to his feet and said to them, You have done wrong and taken strange women for your wives, so increasing the sin of Israel.
11So now, give praise to the Lord, the God of your fathers, and do his pleasure; and make yourselves separate from the peoples of the land and from the strange women.
12Then all the people, answering, said with a loud voice, As you have said, so it is right for us to do.
13But the number of people is great, and it is a time of much rain; it is not possible for us to go on waiting outside, and this is not a thing which may be done in one day or even two: for our sin in this business is great.
14So now let our rulers be representatives for all the people, and let all those in our towns who are married to strange women come at fixed times, and with them the responsible men and the judges of every town, till the burning wrath of our God is turned away from us, and this has been done.
15Only Jonathan, the son of Asahel, and Jahzeiah, the son of Tikvah, were against this, Meshullam and Shabbethai the Levite supporting them.
16So those who had come back did so. And Ezra the priest, with certain heads of families, by their fathers' families, all of them by their names, were marked out; and on the first day of the tenth month they took their places to go into the question with care.
17And they got to the end of all the men who were married to strange women by the first day of the first month.
18And among the sons of the priests who were married to strange women were these: of the sons of Jeshua, the son of Jozadak and his brothers, Maaseiah and Eliezer and Jarib and Gedaliah.
19And they gave their word that they would put away their wives; and for their sin, they gave an offering of a male sheep of the flock.
