“My God, I am too ashamed and hurt to turn to you, because we’re in our iniquities over our heads. Furthermore, my God, our sins have grown as high as the heavens. ⁷ We have lived in great sin from the days of our ancestors even until today, and because of those iniquities we, our kings, and our priests have been delivered over to foreign kings, for execution, for captivity, for plunder, and for humiliation, as is the case^[a] today. ⁸ Though now, for a moment, grace has been shown^[b] from the Lord our God, leaving a few survivors to escape, and providing us a secure hold in his Holy Place, so that our God might enlighten us and give us relief from our servitude. ⁹ Even though we are slaves, our God has not abandoned us in our slavery. Instead, he has extended gracious love to us in the presence of the kings of Persia, to grant us revival, to set up the Temple of our God, to repair its damage, and to give us a protective wall for Judah and Jerusalem.

¹⁰ Now, our God, what can we say besides this? Because we have abandoned your commandments ¹¹ that you gave in the writings^[c] of your servants, the prophets:

‘The land you are entering to possess is a morally unclean land due to the moral uncleanness of the people who live in there—along with their abominations—that has filled it from one end to the other with their impurities. ¹² So, therefore, do not give your daughters in marriage to their sons, nor marry their daughters to your sons, and under no circumstances are you to seek their well-being or their wealth, so that you may remain strong, enjoying the best things the land has to give, and so that you may establish an inheritance for your children forever.’^[d]

¹³ “After all that has happened to us because of our evil behavior, and because of our great sin—considering that you our God have punished us less than our iniquities deserve^[e] and have given us this deliverance— ¹⁴ should we violate your commandments by intermarrying with the nations^[f] who practice these abominations? Would you not be angry with us until you had consumed us, with not even a remnant surviving^[g] to escape?

¹⁵ Lord God of Israel, you are just: As a result, we remain here today delivered. Look at us! Because of our sin, we cannot stand in your presence as a result of everything that has happened.”