1. While Ezra was praying and confessing, weeping and throwing himself down before the house of God, a very great assembly of men, women, and children from Israel gathered to him. And the people wept bitterly.
2. Shecaniah son of Jehiel, of the sons of Elam, answered and said to Ezra, “We ourselves have broken faith with our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land, and even now there is hope for Israel in spite of this.
3. So now let us make a covenant with our God to send away all of these women and their offspring, according to the advice of my lord and those who tremble at the commandment of our God. Let it be done according to the law.
4. Arise, for it is your task and we are with you. Be strong and do it.”
5. Then Ezra stood up and made the chief priests, Levites, and all of Israel swear to do according to what was said. So they swore this oath.
6. Ezra rose from before the house of God and went to the chamber of Jehohanan son of Eliashib. He did not eat food nor drink water because he was mourning over the sin of the exiles.
7. And they sent a proclamation through Judah and Jerusalem to all the returned exiles to assemble in Jerusalem.
8. Anyone who did not come within three days, by decision of the officials and elders, all of his possessions would be devoted to God, and he himself would be excluded from the assembly of exiles.
9. Then all the men of Judah and Benjamin assembled in Jerusalem within the three days. It was the ninth month on the twentieth day of the month. All the people sat in the public square of the house of God trembling because of this matter and from the rains.
10. Then Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have broke faith and married foreign women, increasing the guilt of Israel.