Let now our rulers of all the congregation stand, and let all them which have taken strange wives in our cities come at appointed times, and with them the elders of every city, and the judges thereof, until the fierce wrath of our God for this matter be turned from us.
Ezra 10:12 Then all the congregation answered and said with a loud voice, As thou hast said, so must we do.
Ezra 10:13 But the people are many, and it is a time of much rain, and we are not able to stand without, neither is this a work of one day or two: for we are many that have transgressed in this thing.
Ezra 10:14 Let now our rulers of all the congregation stand, and let all them which have taken strange wives in our cities come at appointed times, and with them the elders of every city, and the judges thereof, until the fierce wrath of our God for this matter be turned from us.
Ezra 10:15 Only Jonathan the son of Asahel and Jahaziah the son of Tikvah were employed about this matter: and Meshullam and Shabbethai the Levite helped them.
Ezra 10:16 And the children of the captivity did so. And Ezra the priest, with certain chief of the fathers, after the house of their fathers, and all of them by their names, were separated, and sat down in the first day of the tenth month to examine the matter.
The verse centers on "rulers", "congregation", "stand", "taken", "strange", "wives", "cities", and "come". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "rulers" and "congregation", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.
The nearby context moves from verse 13's "But the people are many and it..." into verse 15's "Only Jonathan the son of Asahel and...", so "rulers" and "congregation" 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 "rulers" and "congregation" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.