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Chapter 10

The People’s Response. While Ezra was praying and acknowledging their guilt as he wept and prostrated himself in front of the temple of God, a vast assemblage of men, women, and children gathered around him as the people wept profusely. Then Shecaniah, the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, spoke up and said to Ezra: “We have been unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women from the peoples of this land. However, in spite of this, there is still hope for Israel. Let us now make a covenant with our God to send away all these wives and their children, in accordance with the counsel of my lord and of those who fear the commandments of our God. Let it be done in accordance with the law.[a]

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Footnotes

  1. Ezra 10:3 Although the idea of divorcing wives and children seems ungodly and extreme, it was significant in showing the attention to God’s law that had been ignored by taking foreign wives in the first place.