Hey everyone, this is Mary Demuth and this is Pray Every Day, where I pray you through the Bible verse by verse.

So humbled and grateful to have you on this eighth day of September.

I hope it's a good September for you.

Today we're reading the first half of Ezra chapter 10, verses 1 through 17 in the World English Bible.

Before I read that, I want to pray for someone who's lost a pet.

That can be so, so hard. Lord Jesus, I pray for my friend who has lost a pet. That is not an easy thing.

It's never easy to lose a companion. And I pray that you would be with them in their grief and help

them to find you in the middle of that grief. Thank you that you grieve alongside us.

And you understand and are well acquainted with our weaknesses and our griefs. I pray this in Jesus name. Amen. All right, Ezra 10, 1 through 17, World English Bible. This is what it says. Now, while Ezra

prayed and made confession, weeping and casting himself down before God's house, there were gathered together

to him out of Israel, a very great assembly of men and women and children. For the people wept very

bitterly, Shechaniah, the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, answered Ezra,

we have trespassed against our God and have married foreign women of the peoples of the land.

Yet now there is hope for Israel concerning this thing.

Now therefore, let's make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives and those who are born of them according to the counsel of my Lord

and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God.

Let it be done according to the law.

Arise, for the matter belongs to you and we are with you.

Be courageous and do it.

Then Ezra arose and made the chiefs of the priests,

the Levites and all Israel, to swear that they would do

according to this word, so they swore.

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