70. For both they and their sons have married with their daughters, and the holy seed is mixed with the strange people of the land; and from the beginning of this matter the rulers and the nobles have been partakers of this iniquity.
71. And as soon as I had heard these things, I tore my clothes, and my holy garment, and plucked the hair from off my head and beard, and sat me down sad and full of heaviness.
72. So all they that were moved at the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, assembled to me, while I mourned for the iniquity: but I sat still full of heaviness until the evening sacrifice.
73. Then rising up from the fast with my clothes and my holy garment tore, and bowing my knees, and stretching forth my hands to the Lord,
74. I said, O Lord, I am ashamed and confounded before your face;
75. for our sins are multiplied above our heads, and our errors have reached up to heaven,
76. ever since the time of our fathers; and we are in great sin, even to this day.
77. And for our sins and our fathers’ we with our brethren and our kings and our priests were given up to the kings of the earth, to the sword, and to captivity, and for a prey with shame, to this day.
78. And now in some measure has mercy been showed to us from you, O Lord, that there should be left us a root and a name in the place of your sanctuary;
79. and to discover to us a light in the house of the Lord our God, and to give us food in the time of our servitude.
80. Yes, when we were in bondage, we were not forsaken of our Lord; but he made us gracious before the kings of Persia, so that they gave us food,