to estimate the number of those that have thus
married, are to be there also." Accordingly, this was resolved on by
them, and they began the inquiry after those that had married strange
wives on the first day of the tenth month, and continued the inquiry to
the first day of the next month, and found a great many of the
posterity of Jeshua the high priest, and of the priests and Levites, and
Israelites, who had a greater regard to the observation of the law than
to their natural affection, [9] and immediately cast out their wives,
and the children which were born of them. And in order to appease God,
they offered sacrifices, and slew rams, as oblations to him; but it does
not seem to me to be necessary to set down the names of these men.
So when Esdras had reformed this sin about the marriages of the
forementioned persons, he reduced that practice to purity, so that it
continued in that state for the time to come.

5. Now when they kept the feast of tabernacles in the seventh month [10]
and almost all the people were come together to it, they went up to the
open part of the temple, to the gate which looked eastward, and desired
of Esdras that the laws of Moses might be read to them. Accordingly, he
stood in the midst of the multitude and read them; and this he did
from morning to noon. Now, by hearing the laws read to them, they were
instructed to be righteous men for the present and for the future; but
as for their past offenses, they were displeased at themselves, and
proceeded to shed tears on their account, as considering with themselves
that if they had kept the law, they had endured none of these
miseries which they had experienced. But when Esdras saw them in that
disposition, he bade them go home, and not weep, for that it was a
festival, and that they ought not to weep thereon, for that it was not
lawful so to do. [11] He exhorted them rather to proceed immediately to
feasting, and to do what was suitable to a feast, and what was agreeable
to a day of joy; but to let their repentance and sorrow for their former
sins be a security and a guard to them, that they fell no more into the
like offenses. So upon Esdras's exhortation they began to feast;
and when they had so done for eight days, in their tabernacles, they
departed to their own homes, singing hymns to God, and returning thanks
to Esdras for his reformation of what corruptions had been introduced
into their settlement. So it came to pass, that after he had