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This week the Bible Study covered Ezra 9-10:4, in which the remnant who had returned to Judah (including not a few of the priests and leaders) were confronted with their sin of having married foreign women in violation of the clear command of the Torah. The study compared this passage with Exodus 34, Leviticus 21, and Deuteronomy 7 in order to demonstrate that the issue was never ethnicity but rather idolatry. Israel needed to be kept free of idolatry, which was endemic in these other nations.