1 Esdras 8:61-67

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

⁶¹ When we had been there three days, the silver and the gold were weighed and delivered in the house of our Lord to the priest Meremoth son of Uriah;^{(A) 62} with him was Eleazar son of Phinehas, and with them were Jozabad son of Jeshua and Moeth son of Binnui, the Levites. The whole was counted and weighed, and the weight of everything was recorded at that very time. ⁶³ And those who had returned from exile offered sacrifices to the Lord, the God of Israel, twelve bulls for all Israel, ninety-six rams, seventy-two lambs, and as a thank offering twelve male goats—all as a sacrifice to the Lord.^{(B) 64} They delivered the king’s orders to the royal stewards and to the governors of Coelesyria and Phoenicia, and these officials^[a] honored the nation and the temple of the Lord.^(C)

Ezra’s Prayer

⁶⁵ After these things had been done, the leaders came to me and said,^{(D) 66} “The nation of Israel and the rulers and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the foreign nations of the land and their pollutions, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Edomites.^{(E) 67} For they and their sons have married the daughters of these people,^[b] and the holy seed has been mixed with the foreign nations of the land, and from the beginning of this matter the leaders and the nobles have been sharing in this iniquity.”