Open English Translation EZRA Chapter 9

9 Now as soon as those things were finished, the leaders came to me, saying, “The people of Yisrael, and the priests and Levites haven’t kept themselves separate from the idolatry of the peoples of the lands: the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, the Yebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians, and the Amorites. 2 Instead, they’ve taken women from those peoples as wives for themselves and their sons, so they’ve diluted their sacred heritage with the anti-God customs of those peoples. But the worst is that it’s our leaders and officials that have been at the forefront in this unfaithfulness.” 3 As soon as I heard that, I tore my clothes and pulled some of the hair out of my head and beard, and I sat down appalled. 4 Any others who respectfully followed Yisrael’s god’s instructions and who were concerned about the unfaithfulness of the exiles, joined with me and I sat there appalled until the time of the evening sacrifice.

5 So I got up from my position of humilation with my torn clothes during the evening sacrifice, then I went down on my knees and spread out my palms to my god Yahweh 6 and prayed, “My god, I’m ashamed and humiliated to raise my face to you, my god, because our sins have multiplied and risen above our heads, and our guilt has mounted up as high as the sky. 7 From back in the time of our ancestors until today, we’ve been very guilty, and in our disobedience, we ourselves, including our kings and our priests, have been killed by the kings of the surrounding countries, or taken captive, or been plundered, or simply put to shame, which is the case right now. 8 But now for a brief moment, favour has come from our god Yahweh and given us remaining survivors a stake in his holy place—yes, our god has cheered us up and given us a little relief from our slavery. 9 Because we are slaves, yet our god hasn’t abandoned us in our slavery, but he’s used his loyal commitment to us to influence the Persian king to give to us breathing space to rebuild the house of our god from its ruins, and to give to us a ‘wall of protection’ in Yerushalem and across Yehudah.

10 “So now, our god, what can we say after that? We’ve abandoned your instructions 11 which you gave us via your servants, the prophets, saying, ‘The land that you’re all entering to occupy is a land of impurity, due to the impurity of the current inhabitants with their evil practices that have filled it from one end to the other with their filth. 12 So now, don’t give your daughters to their sons to marry, or vice versa. And don’t try to make long-term peace treaties or contracts with them. Then you all will stay in power, and eat the good things of the land, and be able to pass it on to your children for all their future generations.’[ref]

13 “Yet after everything that’s happened to us as a result our evil actions and our great guilt (even though you, our god, didn’t punish us as harshly as you could have, and you’ve allowed us to survive as we’re here now), 14 should we return to disobeying your instructions and to intermarrying with those people groups with their evil practices? You’d rightfully be angry enough with us as to wipe us out completely without leaving any remnant or survivors? 15 Yahweh, the god of Yisrael, you always do what is right, because here we are as survivors even to this day. So, yes, here we are standing in front of you in our guilt, because none of us are innocent enough to stand in front of you because of what we’ve done.”