All the assembly replied in a loud voice: “We will do just as you have said! ¹ 

A proclamation ¹  was circulated ²  throughout Judah and Jerusalem ³  that all the exiles were to be assembled in Jerusalem.

When the seventh month arrived and the Israelites ¹  were living ²  in their ³  towns, the people assembled ⁴  in ⁵  Jerusalem. ⁶ 

Everyone who did not come within three days would thereby forfeit all his property, in keeping with the counsel of the officials and the elders. Furthermore, he himself would be excluded from the assembly of the exiles.

I had them assemble ¹  at the canal ²  that flows toward Ahava, and we camped there for three days. I observed that the people and the priests were present, but I found no Levites there.

Let our leaders take steps ¹  on behalf of all the assembly. Let all those in our towns who have married foreign women come at an appointed time, and with them the elders of each town and its judges, until the hot anger of our God is turned away from us in this matter.”

Afterward they offered the continual burnt offerings and those for the new moons and those for all the holy assemblies of the Lord and all those that were being voluntarily offered to the Lord.

The entire group numbered 42,360, ¹ 

While Ezra was praying and confessing, weeping and throwing himself to the ground before the temple of God, a very large crowd of Israelites – men, women, and children alike – gathered around him. The people wept loudly. ¹ 

All the men of Judah and Benjamin were gathered in Jerusalem within the three days. (It was in the ninth month, on the twentieth day of that month.) All the people sat in the square at the temple of God, trembling because of this matter and because of the rains.

Everyone who held the words of the God of Israel in awe ¹  gathered around me because of the unfaithful acts of the people of the exile. ²  Devastated, I continued to sit there until the evening offering.