Chapter 9

Denunciation of Mixed Marriages. ¹ After these matters had been concluded, the leaders approached me and said: “The people of Israel, including the priests and the Levites, have not kept themselves separated from the neighboring peoples with their abominable practices—the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. ² They have taken women of these nations as wives for themselves and their sons, and as a result, they have contaminated the holy race by such unions. In this regard the leaders and the magistrates have been the major offenders.”

Ezra’s Exhortation. ³ Upon hearing this news, I tore my tunic and cloak, after which I plucked hair from my beard and my head and sat down in a complete stupor until the evening sacrifice. ⁴ Then all those who trembled with fear at the words of the God of Israel gathered around me, while I sat there appalled until the evening sacrifice. ^5 [a]However, at the time of the evening sacrifice, I arose from my stupor, with my cloak and my mantle torn, and I fell to my knees while stretching out my hands to the Lord.

⁶ Then I said: “O my God, I am too ashamed and embarrassed to lift my face to you, my God, because our iniquities have increased until they have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has reached the heavens. ⁷ From the time of our fathers until now our guilt has been great, and because of our iniquities we and our kings and our priests have been handed over into the power of foreign rulers and subjected to the sword, to captivity, to pillage and disgrace, as is the case today.

⁸ “But now, for a brief moment, the Lord, our God has shown mercy to us by allowing a remnant of us to escape and given us a stable home in his sanctuary, thereby bringing light to our eyes and granting us some relief in our bondage. ⁹ For we are slaves, but God has not forgotten us in our state of slavery. He has extended his faithful love to us and turned the good will of the kings of Persia toward us, while granting us new life to rebuild the house of our God, restore its ruins, and provide us with a wall of protection in Judah and Jerusalem.

¹⁰ “But now, our God, what can we say after all this? For we have abandoned your commandments, ¹¹ which you gave through your servants, the prophets, when you said: ‘The land that you are entering to possess is a land polluted by the abominations of the people of the country and their disgusting practices that have filled it with their filth from one end to the other. ¹² Therefore, do not give your daughters in marriage to their sons or let their daughters marry your sons. Nor must you seek peace with them or enhance their prosperity. In this way you will grow strong, enjoy the produce of the land, and leave it as an inheritance to your children forever.’

¹³ “After all that has befallen us for our evil deeds and our great guilt, you, O Lord, have punished us less than our sins have deserved and have allowed us to survive. ¹⁴ Shall we once again disobey your commandments and intermarry with people who engage in these loathsome practices? Would you not be enraged with us to the point that you would destroy us, leaving us with neither remnant nor survivor? ¹⁵ O Lord, God of Israel, you are righteous. We survive only as a remnant. We come here before you in our guilt. Because of this, none of us can stand in your presence.”