¹And when these had discharged their duties, the officials approached me and said, “The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the various countries, with their abominations – those of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, the Ammonite, the Moabite, the Egyptian and the Amorite. ²For they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and for their sons, and they have mixed holy seed with the peoples of the various countries. And the involvement of the officials and the administrators was first in this perverseness.” ³And when I heard this matter, I tore my clothes and my coat, and I pulled the hair out of my head and my chin, and I sat down devastated. ⁴Then all who trembled at the words of the God of Israel concerning the perverseness of the deportees gathered around me as I sat devastated, until the evening offering. ⁵At the evening offering I arose from my humbled state, and having torn my clothes and my coat, I bowed down on my knees and stretched my hands out to the Lord my God. ⁶And I said, “O God of mine, I am ashamed and unworthy to lift up, O God of mine, my face to you, for our iniquities have risen above our head, and our guilt extends to heaven. ⁷We have been highly guilty from the days of our fathers up to this day, and for our iniquities we – our kings and our priests – have been delivered into the hands of the kings of the various countries, by the sword and in captivity and through spoil and with shamefacedness, as on this day. ⁸But now, in a short moment, grace has come from the Lord our God in leaving us an escaped remnant, and in giving us a tent-peg hold in his holy place, and in our God enlightening our eyes and in reanimating us a little in our enslavement. ⁹For we are slaves, but our God has not abandoned us in our enslavement, and he has shown us kindness from the kings of Persia in reanimating us to raise up the house of our God, and to restore it from its ruins, and in giving us a wall in Judah and Jerusalem. ¹⁰And now, what can we say, O God of ours, after this, for we have abandoned your commandments ¹¹which you gave through the intermediacy of your servants the prophets, saying, ‘The land into which you are coming, to inherit it, is a filthy land with the filth of the peoples of the various countries, with their abominations with which they have filled it from end to end in their uncleanness. ¹²So now, do not give your daughters to their sons, and do not take their daughters for your sons, and do not seek their peace or their welfare, throughout the age, in order that you may prevail and eat the good produce of the land, and bequeath it to your sons age-abidingly.’ ¹³And after everything that has come over us for our evil works and for our great guilt, since you, our God, have been lenient with our iniquities and have given us this very escaped remnant, ¹⁴how could we go back and break your commandments by intermarrying with the various peoples of these abominations? Would you not be incensed at us to the extent of finishing us off without remainder or escaped remnant? ¹⁵O Lord God of Israel, you are righteous, for we remain an escaped remnant on this very day. Here we are before you in our guilt, for there are no grounds for standing before you on account of this.”