^{11 Ref} Now therefore make confession to Yahweh, the God of your fathers, and do his pleasure; and separate yourselves from the peoples of the land, and from the foreign women.

^{12 Ref} Then all the assembly answered with a loud voice, As you have said concerning us, so must we do.

^{13 Ref} But the people are many, and it is a time of much rain, and we are not able to stand outside: neither is this a work of one day or two; for we have greatly transgressed in this matter.

^{14 Ref} Let now 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 the judges of it, until the fierce wrath of our God be turned from us, until this matter be dispatched.

^{15 Ref} Only Jonathan the son of Asahel and Jahzeiah the son of Tikvah stood up against this [matter]: and Meshullam and Shabbethai the Levite helped them.

^{16 Ref} The children of the captivity did so. Ezra the priest, [with] certain heads of fathers' [houses], 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 made an end with all the men who had married foreign women by the first day of the first month.

^{18 Ref} Among the sons of the priests there were found who had married foreign women: [namely], of the sons of Jeshua, the son of Jozadak, and his brothers, Maaseiah, and Eliezer, and Jarib, and Gedaliah.

^{19 Ref} They gave their hand that they would put away their wives; and being guilty, [they offered] a ram of the flock for their guilt.