10. Then Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have broke faith and married foreign women, increasing the guilt of Israel.
11. Now make a confession to Yahweh the God of your ancestors and do his will. Separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from the foreign women.”
12. Then all the assembly answered with a great voice and said, “It is so. We must do according to your words.
13. But the people are many, and it is the time of rain; we are unable to stand outside. The task is not for one day or two, for we greatly rebelled in this matter.
14. Please let our leaders stand for the whole assembly, and let all that are in our cities who have married foreign women come at set times, and with them the elders of and judges of each city, until the fierce wrath of our God because of this matter is averted from us.”
15. Only Jehonathan son of Asahel and Jahzeiah son of Tikvah stood against this, and the Levites Meshullam and Shabbethai supported them.
16. The returned exiles did so. Ezra the priest selected men, the heads of the families according to the house of their fathers, all of them by name. They sat down to examine the matter on the first day of the tenth month.
17. They finished investigating all the men who married foreign women by the first day of the first month.
18. There was found from the sons of the priests those who had married foreign women, from the sons of Jeshua son of Jehozadak and his brothers: Maaseiah, Eliezer, Jarib, and Gedaliah.
19. They pledged themselves to put away their wives, and their guilt offering was a ram of the flock for their guilt.
20. From the sons of Immer: Hanani and Zebadiah.
21. From the sons of Harim: Maaseiah, Elijah, Shemaiah, Jehiel, and Uzziah.
22. From the sons of Pashhur: Elioenai, Maaseiah, Ishmael, Nethanel, Jozabad, and Eleasah.
23. From the Levites: Jozabad, Shimei, Kelaiah (that is, Kelita), Pethahiah, Judah, and Eliezer.