MSB(i)
11 Now, therefore, make a confession to the LORD, the God of your fathers, and do His will. Separate yourselves from the people of the land and from your foreign wives.”
12 And the whole assembly responded in a loud voice: “Truly we must do as you say!
13 But there are many people here, and it is the rainy season. We are not able to stay out in the open. Nor is this the work of one or two days, for we have transgressed greatly in this matter.
14 Let our leaders represent the whole assembly. Then let everyone in our towns who has married a foreign woman come at an appointed time, together with the elders and judges of each town, until the fierce anger of our God in this matter is turned away from us.”
15 (Only Jonathan son of Asahel and Jahzeiah son of Tikvah, supported by Meshullam and Shabbethai the Levite, opposed this plan.)
16 So the exiles did as proposed. Ezra the priest selected men who were family heads, each of them identified by name, to represent their families. On the first day of the tenth month they launched the investigation,
17 and by the first day of the first month they had dealt with all the men who had married foreign women.
18 Among the descendants of the priests who had married foreign women were found these descendants of Jeshua son of Jozadak and his brothers: Maaseiah, Eliezer, Jarib, and Gedaliah.
19 They pledged to send their wives away, and for their guilt they presented a ram from the flock as a guilt offering.