Ezra and the Community's Difficult Decision

Ezra 9

¹ Now when these things were done, the princes came near to me, saying, “The people of Israel, the priests, and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands, following their abominations, even those of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites.

² For they have taken of their daughters for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy offspring have mixed themselves with the peoples of the lands. Yes, the hand of the princes and rulers has been chief in this trespass.”

³ When I heard this thing, I tore my garment and my robe, and pulled the hair out of my head and of my beard, and sat down confounded.

⁴ Then everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel were assembled to me because of the trespass of the exiles; and I sat confounded until the evening offering.

Ezra 10

¹ Now while Ezra prayed and made confession, weeping and casting himself down before God’s house, there was gathered together to him out of Israel a very great assembly of men and women and children; for the people wept very bitterly.

² Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, answered Ezra, “We have trespassed against our God, and have married foreign women of the peoples of the land. Yet now there is hope for Israel concerning this thing.

³ Now therefore let’s make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives and those who are born of them, according to the counsel of my lord and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God. Let it be done according to the law.

⁴ Arise, for the matter belongs to you and we are with you. Be courageous, and do it.”

⁵ Then Ezra arose, and made the chiefs of the priests, the Levites, and all Israel to swear that they would do according to this word. So they swore.

⁶ Then Ezra rose up from before God’s house, and went into the room of Jehohanan the son of Eliashib. When he came there, he didn’t eat bread or drink water, for he mourned because of the trespass of the exiles.

⁷ They made a proclamation throughout Judah and Jerusalem to all the children of the captivity, that they should gather themselves together to Jerusalem;

⁸ and that whoever didn’t come within three days, according to the counsel of the princes and the elders, all his possessions should be forfeited, and he himself separated from the assembly of the captivity.

⁹ Then all the men of Judah and Benjamin gathered themselves together to Jerusalem within the three days. It was the ninth month, on the twentieth day of the month; and all the people sat in the wide place in front of God’s house, trembling because of this matter, and because of the great rain.

¹⁰ Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have trespassed, and have married foreign women, increasing the guilt of Israel.

¹¹ Now therefore make confession to Yahweh, the God of your fathers and do his pleasure. Separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from the foreign women.”

¹² Then all the assembly answered with a loud voice, “We must do as you have said concerning us.

¹³ But the people are many, and it is a time of much rain, and we are not able to stand outside. This is not a work of one day or two, for we have greatly transgressed in this matter.

¹⁴ Now let our princes be appointed for all the assembly, and let all those who are in our cities who have married foreign women come at appointed times, and with them the elders of every city and its judges, until the fierce wrath of our God is turned from us, until this matter is resolved.”

¹⁵ Only Jonathan the son of Asahel and Jahzeiah the son of Tikvah stood up against this; and Meshullam and Shabbethai the Levite helped them.

¹⁶ The children of the captivity did so. Ezra the priest, with certain heads of fathers’ households, after their fathers’ houses, and all of them by their names, were set apart; and they sat down in the first day of the tenth month to examine the matter.

¹⁷ They finished with all the men who had married foreign women by the first day of the first month.