n, and had restored them
again to Jerusalem, and to their own land, and had obliged the kings of
Persia to have compassion on them, that he would also forgive them their
sins they had now committed, which, though they deserved death, yet, was
it agreeable to the mercy of God, to remit even to these the punishment
due to them.

4. After Esdras had said this, he left off praying; and when all those
that came to him with their wives and children were under lamentation,
one whose name was Jechonias, a principal man in Jerusalem, came to
him, and said that they had sinned in marrying strange wives; and
he persuaded him to adjure them all to cast those wives out, and the
children born of them, and that those should be punished who would not
obey the law. So Esdras hearkened to this advice, and made the heads of
the priests, and of the Levites, and of the Israelites, swear that they
would put away those wives and children, according to the advice of
Jechonias. And when he had received their oaths, he went in haste out
of the temple into the chamber of Johanan, the son of Eliasib, and as
he had hitherto tasted nothing at all for grief, so he abode there that
day. And when proclamation was made, that all those of the captivity
should gather themselves together to Jerusalem, and those that did not
meet there in two or three days should be banished from the multitude,
and that their substance should b appropriated to the uses of the
temple, according to the sentence of the elders, those that were of the
tribes of Judah and Benjamin came together in three days, viz. on the
twentieth day of the ninth month, which, according to the Hebrews, is
called Tebeth, and according to the Macedonians, Apelleius. Now as they
were sitting in the upper room of the temple, where the elders also
were present, but were uneasy because of the cold, Esdras stood up and
accused them, and told them that they had sinned in marrying wives that
were not of their own nation; but that now they would do a thing both
pleasing to God, and advantageous to themselves, if they would put those
wives away. Accordingly, they all cried out that they would do so. That,
however, the multitude was great, and that the season of the year was
winter, and that this work would require more than one or two days.
"Let their rulers, therefore, [said they,] and those that have married
strange wives, come hither at a proper time, while the elders of every
place, that are in common