82. Don’t seek at any time to make a peace treaty with them, so that you may be strong and eat the good things of the land and pass it on as an inheritance to your children forever."
83. All that has happened to us has resulted from our evil deeds and our great sins.
84. For you, Lord, removed our sins, and you gave us such a root as this. Yet we again turned away to disobey your Law by intermixing with the impure of the neighboring peoples.
85. Weren’t you angry enough with us to destroy us without leaving a root or a descendant or our honor?
86. Lord of Israel, you are true. We are left as a root this very day.
87. Look! We are now before you in our immorality. We can’t stand in your presence anymore because of these things.
88. While Ezra was praying and offering up his confession, weeping in the dust before the temple, a very large crowd of men, women, and youth from Jerusalem gathered around him. There was great weeping among the people.
89. Then Shecaniah, Jehiel’s son, one of the men of Israel, shouted to Ezra, "We have sinned against the Lord, and we have married foreign women from the neighboring peoples. Yet there is hope for Israel.