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.