Ezra 10:11 (DRB)

Passage

And now make confession to the Lord the God of your fathers, and do his pleasure, and separate yourselves from the people of the land, and from your strange wives.

Nearby Context

Ezra 10:9 Then all the men of Juda, and Benjamin gathered themselves together to Jerusalem within three days, in the ninth month, the twentieth day of the month: and all the people sat in the street of the house of God, trembling because of the sin, and the rain.

Ezra 10:10 And Esdras the priest stood up, and said to them: You have transgressed, and taken strange wives, to add to the sins of Israel.

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

Ezra 10:12 And all the multitude answered and said with a loud voice: According to thy word unto us, so be it done.

Ezra 10:13 But as the people are many, and it is time of rain, and we are not able to stand without, and it is not a work of one day or two, (for we have exceedingly sinned in this matter,)

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "make", "confession", "lord", "fathers", "pleasure", "separate", "yourselves", and "people". 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 Esdras the priest stood up and..." into verse 12's "And all the multitude 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.