Now therefore make confession to the Lord God of your fathers,.... Of their sin, and express their detestation of it, and repentance for it:
and do his pleasure; obey his will, and particularly in this case:
and separate yourselves from the people of the land; the Canaanites, c. have no fellowship with them, make no covenants, contracts, and alliances with them for the future
and from the strange wives; they had taken; put them away.