Joshua, judges, Ruth, 1st and 2nd Samuel, 1st and 2nd Kings, 1st and 2nd Chronicles,

and now Ezra, and notice that the chapters and the size of the books are getting smaller.

And that's going to be the case with Nehemiah and certainly Esther.

And then Job is kind of a little bit longer, but we'll try to get through it because

that's quite a book.

So if you don't have any trials scheduled for your life about the time we get to Job,

you're going to go

through major trials just right at the right time. And then after Job is Psalms, can't

wait for that. The Lord Terry's. And of course, after Psalms, I really can't wait for

Proverbs, the book of Proverbs. So that's what we have to look forward to, but tonight we're going to, Lord willing,

do both chapters, chapters 9 and 10.

And so why don't we pray before we jump in, if you would join with me.

We'll ask God's blessing on our time together in His Word.

Loving Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your word. our time together in His Word.

Loving Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your word. Thank you for this time that we have on Thursday nights to come together and just put

everything aside all the busyness of our busy lives and just focus our attention on you and as we

study your word and Lord I just pray that tonight you'll minister to us in our Bible study

that you'll speak to us that you'll open our eyes to what you have before us here in the

book of Ezra. Lord, thank you in advance for what you're going to do in our time together tonight.

We pray in Jesus' name, amen. All right, let's jump in. Verse 1. 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,

...