11. Now you must confess your sins to the Lord, the God of your ancestors. You must obey his command. Separate yourselves from the people living around you and from your foreign wives.”
12. Then the whole group who met together answered Ezra. They shouted, “Ezra, you are right! We must do what you say.
13. But there are many people here. And it is the rainy time of year, so we cannot stay outside. This problem cannot be solved in a day or two because we have sinned in a very bad way.
14. Let our leaders decide for the whole group meeting here. Then let every man in our towns who married a foreign woman come here to Jerusalem at a planned time. Let them come here with the elders and judges of their towns. Then God will stop being angry with us.”
15. Only a few men were against this plan. They were Jonathan son of Asahel and Jahzeiah son of Tikvah. Meshullam and Shabbethai the Levite also were against the plan.
16. So the Israelites who came back to Jerusalem accepted the plan. Ezra the priest chose men who were family leaders. He chose one man from each tribe. Each man was chosen by name. On the first day of the tenth month, the men who were chosen sat down to study each of the cases.
17. And by the first day of the first month, they finished discussing all the men who had married foreign women.