Ezra / Question
Shecaniah proposed making a covenant with God to put away the foreign wives and the children born to them, “according to the counsel” and the Law. Ezra then made leading priests, Levites, and all Israel swear to do it. See Ezra 10:3 and Ezra 10:5.
In Ezra 10:1–6, Ezra’s public prayer and tears at the temple draw an unusually large crowd that joins in loud grief. A man named Shecaniah speaks for the group, admitting wrongdoing in marriages with local foreign women but insisting the situation is not beyond repair. This scene continues directly from Ezra 9, where Ezra reacts to reports that many returned exiles, including leaders, have taken wives from surrounding peoples. Chapter 10 opens with Ezra still in visible distress at the house of God, and it turns his personal lament into a community-wide moment.
Ezra 10:1–6 presents a public moment of repentance centered at the temple. Ezra’s grief is not private: he is praying, confessing, weeping, and lying facedown “before the house of God,” and a “very great assembly” joins him, including men, women, and children.
A careful answer keeps the immediate passage, the book's argument, and the whole-Bible storyline together, so the question is answered in context instead of as a detached idea.
Start with Ezra 10:3, then read the surrounding section so the answer stays connected to the passage's flow.
3Now therefore let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives, and such as are born of them, according to the counsel of my lord, and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God; and let it be done according to the law.