Once again we as Christians are warned about keeping separate from the world.

Ezra 9:1
After these things had been done, the leaders came to me and said, "The people of Israel, including the priests and the Levites, have not kept themselves separate from the neighboring peoples with their detestable practices, like those of the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians and Amorites.

And once again the leaders have led the way.
Ezra 9:2b
They have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and their sons, and have mingled the holy race with the peoples around them. And the leaders and officials have led the way in this unfaithfulness."

Shecaniah offered a very drastic way of correcting (or more like overcorrecting) the situation of intermarriage. His correction was to send away the foreign wives and their children. Most of the men agreed - only a few opposed the plan.

Wouldn’t it have been easier to have just obeyed God in the first place? How often in our lives as Christians have we made things much harder on ourselves because we didn’t listen and obey - the first time???