\v 1 While Ezra was kneeling down in front of the temple and praying and crying, he was confessing the sins that the Israelite people had committed. Many people, men and women and children,
\v 2 Then Shecaniah son of Jehiel in the clan of Elam, said this to him: "We have disobeyed God. Some of us have married women who are not Israelites. But we can still hope that Yahweh will be merciful to us Israelite people.
\v 3 We will do what you, and the others who have an awesome respect for what our God has commanded, tell us to do. We will do what God told us in his laws. We will make a covenant
\v 5 So Ezra stood up and demanded that the leaders of the priests, the descendants of Levi, and all the other Israelite people solemnly declare that they would do what Shecaniah said that they
\v 6 Then Ezra went away from in front of the temple and went to the room where Jehohanan lived. He stayed there that night, but he did not eat or drink anything. He was still sad because some
of the Israelites who had returned from Babylonia had not faithfully obeyed God's laws.
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\v 7 Then the leaders sent a message to all the people in Jerusalem and in other towns in Judah, saying that all those who had returned from Babylonia should come to Jerusalem immediately.
\v 8 The leaders also said that if any of them did not arrive within three days, they would order that all the property of those people be taken from them, and that they must no longer be considered to belong to the Israelite people; they would be considered to be foreigners.
\v 9 So within three days, all the people of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin gathered in Jerusalem. They were there, sitting in the courtyard in front of the temple. They were
\v 10 Then Ezra stood up and said to them, "Some of you men have committed an act of treason against God. You have married women who are not Israelites. By doing that, you have made us
\v 11 So now you must worship Yahweh, the God whom your ancestors worshiped, and you must do what he wants. Separate yourselves from the people of other nations and from the women
\v 13 But we are a very large group, and it is raining hard. Also, there are many of us who have committed this evil sin. This is something that we cannot take care of in
\v 14 So allow our leaders to decide for all of us what we should do. Tell everyone who has married a woman who is not Israelite to come at a time that you decide. They should come with the
\v 16 But all the others who had returned from Babylonia said that they would do it. So Ezra chose leaders of each of the clans, and I wrote down their names. On the first day of the tenth month these men came and sat
\v 23 The descendants of Levi who had married non-Jewish women were Jozabad, Shimei, Kelaiah (whose other name was Kelita), Pethahiah, Judah, and Eliezer.