When I heard these words I sat down and wept, and mourned for days; and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

And I said, “O Lord God of heaven, the great and terrible God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments;

Then the king said to me, “For what do you make request?” So I prayed to the God of heaven.

Then I replied to them, “The God of heaven will make us prosper, and we his servants will arise and build; but you have no portion or right or memorial in Jerusalem.”

And Ezra said: “Thou art the Lord, thou alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and thou preservest all of them; and the host of heaven worships thee.

Thou didst come down upon Mount Sinai, and speak with them from heaven and give them right ordinances and true laws, good statutes and commandments,

Thou didst give them bread from heaven for their hunger and bring forth water for them from the rock for their thirst, and thou didst tell them to go in to possess the land which thou hadst sworn to give them.

Thou didst multiply their descendants as the stars of heaven, and thou didst bring them into the land which thou hadst told their fathers to enter and possess.

Therefore thou didst give them into the hand of their enemies, who made them suffer; and in the time of their suffering they cried to thee and thou didst hear them from heaven; and according to thy great mercies thou didst give them saviors who saved them from the hand of their enemies.

But after they had rest they did evil again before thee, and thou didst abandon them to the hand of their enemies, so that they had dominion over them; yet when they turned and cried to thee thou didst hear from heaven, and many times thou didst deliver them according to thy mercies.