peoples of the lands.23 It was ‘the officials and the elders’ who issued the order (10:8), and the issuing of the proclamation is not ascribed to Ezra.24 Nowhere did Ezra use (or threaten to use) the plenipotentiary power that Artaxerxes gave him. Rather it was the community, acting on the authority of Scripture as interpreted by them, which addressed the problem of mixed marriage (9:1–2; 10:3). Ezra taught the law (note the didactic and hortatory tone of his recorded prayer in Ezra 9), as expected