As I was reading through Ezra recently, I came to Ezra 10 again which has always been troubling for me. In Ezra 10 we read that all the Israelites are encouraged to put away their foreign wives and children. In the New Testament we read that when a believer and an unbeliever have been joined, that as long as the unbeliever and the unbeliever consents to live with the believer, they should not be divorced *1 Cor. 7:13-16). I have a hard time reconciling these passages since I'm sure there were probably a significant number of the Israelites' wives who did not want to be "put away" and some may have possibly even come to believe in the God of Israel. I suppose that I'm not 100% sure the exact meaning of "put away", it may not necessarily be a divorce, but it does seem like that is the basic effect anyway. Of course, it was a great sin for the Israelites to take unbelieving wives in the first place as it would be a sin for a Christian now to marry a non-Christian. In addition, in the case it goes further than just the wives and extends to the children, which again seems to go against what we read in 1 Cor. 7. I would like to here some others' opinions on these verses.

Thanks,
John