Ezra 10:1-5 - The People Respond
1 While Ezra was saying his prayer and his confession of wrongdoing he wept and fell down before the house of God. A very great number of men and women and children out of Israel came together around him, for the people were weeping bitterly. 2 Shecaniah, the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, answering, said to Ezra, We have done evil against our God, and have taken as our wives strange women of the peoples of the land. But still there is hope for Israel in this question. 3 Let us make an agreement with our God to put away all the wives and all their children, if it seems right to my lord and to those who go in fear of the words of our God. Let it be done in keeping with the law. 4 Up, now! For this is your business, and we are with you. Take heart and do it.
5 Then Ezra got up, and made the chiefs of the priests and the Levites and all Israel take an oath that they would do this. So they took an oath.