1-15.

Folks, let me tell you something. This chapter is about Ezra, and it's a real doozy. Ezra was a priest. He was literally in tears, crying out to the Lord, c'mon man! He was so broken, he took off his robe and put on some sackcloth. See here Jack, he was begging for God to forgive the people of Israel for all the sins they had committed.

But God was like, "Nah, not gonna happen, Ezra." The people had broken the covenant and were associating with foreigners. They had even taken some of their daughters as wives, and that was a big no-no.

My father used to say, "You gotta stick to the rules, or else." And that's exactly what the Lord was saying to Ezra. He was like, "Listen, Jack, you gotta separate yourself from these people, or else it's not gonna end well."

And so Ezra and the people of Israel did just that. They separated themselves from all the foreigners, and they even confessed their sins.

But then, here's the deal. I'm not joking. Some of the officials came to Ezra and said, "What was that? We have a problem here. Some of the people of Israel and the priests and Levites have taken foreign wives. They have contaminated the holy race of Israel!"

So Ezra was like, "Excuse me, what? That's definitely not okay. We gotta do something about this." And so he commanded the people to put away their foreign wives, and he appointed some of the Levites to do some investigating.

It was a real mess for the people of Israel. But in the end, they got it all sorted out. They were able to be obedient to the Lord and keep His commandments, and that was a good thing. No malarkey.