¹² To the rest I say (I, not the Lord) that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her.

¹⁷ What I am saying ^(A)with this boastful confidence, ^(B)I say not as the Lord would^[a] but as a fool.

⁶ Now as a concession, ^(A)not a command, I say this.^[a]

The Unmarried and the Widowed

²⁵ Now concerning^[a] the betrothed,^{[b] (A)}I have no command from the Lord, but I give my judgment as ^(B)one who by the Lord's mercy is ^(C)trustworthy.

¹¹ Now then ^(A)make confession to the Lord, the God of your fathers and do his will. ^(B)Separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from the foreign wives.” ¹² Then all the assembly answered with a loud voice, “It is so; we must do as you have said. ¹³ But the people are many, and it is a time of heavy rain; we cannot stand in the open. Nor is this a task for one day or for two, for we have greatly transgressed in this matter. ¹⁴ Let our officials stand for the whole assembly. Let all in our cities who have taken foreign wives come ^(C)at appointed times, and with them the elders and judges of every city, ^(D)until the fierce wrath of our God over this matter is turned away from us.” ¹⁵ Only Jonathan the son of Asahel and Jahzeiah the son of Tikvah opposed this, and ^(E)Meshullam and ^(F)Shabbethai the Levite supported them.

¹⁶ Then the returned exiles did so. Ezra the priest selected men,^[a] heads of fathers' houses, according to their fathers' houses, each of them designated by name. On the first day of the tenth month they sat down to examine the matter; ¹⁷ and by the first day of the first month they had come to the end of all the men who had married foreign women.

Those Guilty of Intermarriage

¹⁸ Now there were found some of the sons of the priests who had married foreign women: Maaseiah, Eliezer, Jarib, and Gedaliah, some of the sons of ^(G)Jeshua the son of Jozadak and his brothers. ¹⁹ They ^(H)pledged themselves to put away their wives, and their guilt offering was ^(I)a ram of the flock for their guilt.^[b]

² And Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, of the sons of Elam, addressed Ezra: ^(A)“We have broken faith with our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land, but even now there is hope for Israel in spite of this. ³ Therefore ^(B)let us make a covenant with our God to put away all these wives and ^(C)their children, according to the counsel of my lord^[a] and of ^(D)those who tremble at the commandment of our God, and let it be done ^(E)according to the Law.