All right, let's jump in. Verse one. When these things were done, the leaders came to me saying,

the people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands

with respect to the abominations of the Canaanites, the Hittites,

the Parasites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amarites.

For they, verse 2, have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and their sons

so that the holy seed is mixed with the peoples of those lands.

Indeed, the hand of the leaders and rulers has been foremost in this trespass.

So what a way to start the Bible study and start a chapter, but we're starting off with the leaders coming to Ezra with what is and is going to be a very serious

problem as they're apprising him of this and the problem is that the people had intermixed

with the abominable people of the land and this was explicitly and expressly forbidden

and God had commanded them that they should not do this for the reasons we're going to see

here in just a moment. And if this weren't bad enough, it seems that the ones who were at the

forefront of this were none other than the priests. And that really says something. And this is a very

serious problem. And it's going to bring about a very dramatic reaction on the part of Ezra as we're about to see as well.

So we need to kind of understand just how serious this was. At first read you can kind of just read past it. And so Ezra is apprised of this problem.

But you have to understand that this was a very serious problem

because first we're told that it was a trespass.

Now, again, at first read, that doesn't seem like of a of a detail but there's a difference between

a trespass and a sin and i'll explain what that difference is it's going to be germane to our

understanding of just how serious this problem is a trespass has to do with specific sin and it involves willful disobedience.

In other words, you trespass when you knowingly disobey the commands of God, the Word of God.

Different than a sin.

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