Study Desk

"However, there are many people, it is the rainy season, and we are not able to stand in the open. Nor can the task be done in one or two days, because we have done a great wrong in this matter.

"Please let our leaders ^(F1)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 ^(C1)fierce anger of our God on account of this matter is turned away from us."

Only Jonathan the son of Asahel and Jahzeiah the son of Tikvah ^(F1)opposed this, with Meshullam and Shabbethai the Levite supporting them.

But the exiles did so. And ^(F1)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 ^(F2)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.