12. And all the assembly answered and said with a loud voice, “Right! It is upon us to do according to your word.
13. “But the people are many, and it is the season of showers of rain, and we are not able to stand outside. And the work not of one or two days, for we have greatly transgressed in this matter.
14. “Please, let the leaders of all the assembly stand. And let all those in our cities who have taken foreign women come at appointed times, together with the elders and judges of their cities, until the burning wrath of our Elohim is turned away from us in this matter.”
15. Only Yonathan son of Asah’ĕl and Yaḥzeyah son of Tiqwah opposed this, and Meshullam and Shabbethai the Lĕwite gave them support.
16. Then the sons of the exile did so. And Ezra the priest, with certain heads of the fathers’ houses, were separated by the fathers’ houses, each of them by name. And they sat down on the first day of the tenth month to examine the matter.
17. And they finished with all the men who had taken foreign women by the first day of the second month.