Ezra 10:11 (DBY)

Passage

And now make confession to Jehovah the God of your fathers, and do his pleasure, and separate yourselves from the peoples of the land, and from the foreign wives.

Nearby Context

Ezra 10:9 Then were all the men of Judah and Benjamin gathered together at Jerusalem within three days. It was the ninth month, on the twentieth of the month; and all the people sat in the open space of the house of God, trembling because of the matter, and because of the pouring rain.

Ezra 10:10 And Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, Ye have acted unfaithfully, and have taken foreign wives, to increase the trespass of Israel.

Ezra 10:11 And now make confession to Jehovah the God of your fathers, and do his pleasure, and separate yourselves from the peoples of the land, and from the foreign wives.

Ezra 10:12 And the whole congregation answered and said with a loud voice, Yes, it is for us to do according to thy words.

Ezra 10:13 But the people are many, and it is a time of pouring rain, and it is not possible to stand without: neither is this a work for one day or two; for we are many that have transgressed in this thing.

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "make", "confession", "jehovah", "fathers", "pleasure", "separate", "yourselves", and "peoples". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "make" and "confession", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 10's "And Ezra the priest stood up and..." into verse 12's "And the whole congregation answered and said...", so "make" and "confession" belong inside that flow. In Ezra context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.

A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "make" and "confession" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.