Protection of God Invoked

Then I proclaimed a fast there at the river of Ahava, to humble ourselves before our God, to seek from Him a safe journey for us, our little ones, and all our possessions.

For I was ashamed to request from the king troops and horsemen to protect us from the enemy on the way, because we had said to the king, “The hand of our God is favorably disposed to all who seek Him, but His power and His anger are against all those who abandon Him.”

and I weighed out to them the silver, the gold, and the utensils, the offering for the house of our God which the king, his counselors, his officials, and all Israel who were present there had contributed.

A notation was made for everything by number and weight, and all the weight was recorded at that time.

The exiles who had come from the captivity offered burnt offerings to the God of Israel: twelve bulls for all Israel, ninety-six rams, seventy-seven lambs, twelve male goats for a sin offering, all as a burnt offering to the Lord.

So now let’s make a covenant with our God to send away all the wives and their children, following the counsel of my lord and of those who fear the commandment of our God; and let it be done according to the Law.

Then Ezra stood and made the leading priests, the Levites, and all Israel take an oath that they would do according to this proposal; so they took the oath.

So they made a proclamation throughout Judah and Jerusalem to all the exiles, that they were to assemble at Jerusalem,

and that whoever did not come within three days, in accordance with the counsel of the leaders and the elders, all his property would be forfeited, and he himself would be excluded from the assembly of the exiles.

So all the men of Judah and Benjamin assembled at Jerusalem within the three days. It was the ninth month on the twentieth of the month, and all the people sat in the public square before the house of God, trembling because of this matter and the heavy rain.

Then all the assembly replied with a loud voice, “It is our duty to do exactly as you have said!

Please let our leaders represent all the assembly and have all those in our cities who have married foreign wives come at appointed times, together with the elders and judges of each city, until the fierce anger of our God on account of this matter is turned away from us.”

But the exiles did so. And Ezra the priest selected men who were the heads of fathers’ households for each of their father’s households, all of them by name. So they convened on the first day of the tenth month to investigate the matter.

And they finished investigating all the men who had married foreign wives by the first day of the first month.

All of these men had married foreign wives, and some of them had wives by whom they had children.