Confess; Do His Pleasure; Separate Yourselves

Ezra's instructions to those Jews who had offended God by disobeying him and marrying foreign wives (Ezra 10.10-11). Ezra called these men to repentance, which would be demonstrated by: 1. Confessing their guilt; 2. Doing God's pleasure (in other words being obedient to God); and 3. Separating themselves from their foreign wives. This was a messy, difficult process and one which took time, but the ones who repented did do these three things.

What strikes me about this passage is that the process of disobedience had become entrenched and accepted. A man looked around him and saw other men taking wives who were not Jewish and said, "They did it, I suppose I can to." I'm wondering if this translates into our culture in the form of Christians taking on the forms and behavior and entertainment viewing habits and attitudes towards divorce of the world with little thought or discernment. Not that we set out to sin or to depart from holiness, but that we end up there by our undiscerning choices.