Ezra 9

²⁴Do not defile yourselves by any of these practices, for by all these things the nations I am driving out before you have defiled themselves.

²⁵Even the land has become defiled, so I am punishing it for its sin, and the land will vomit out its inhabitants.

²Those of Israelite descent separated themselves from all the foreigners, and they stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers.

¹⁰Then Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have been unfaithful by marrying foreign women, adding to the guilt of Israel.

¹¹Now, therefore, make a confession to the Lord, the God of your fathers, and do His will. Separate yourselves from the people of the land and from your foreign wives.”

¹⁷Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and boast in God;

¹⁸if you know His will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law;

³⁰be careful not to be ensnared by their ways after they have been destroyed before you. Do not inquire about their gods, asking, “How do these nations serve their gods? I will do likewise.”

³¹You must not worship the Lord your God in this way, because they practice for their gods every abomination which the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.

¹⁶For how then can it be known that Your people and I have found favor in Your sight, unless You go with us? How else will we be distinguished from all the other people on the face of the earth?”

²³In those days I also saw Jews who had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab.

²⁴Half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod or of the other peoples, but could not speak the language of Judah.

¹⁶And when you take some of their daughters as brides for your sons, their daughters will prostitute themselves to their gods and cause your sons to do the same.

¹⁸Among the descendants of the priests who had married foreign women were found these descendants of Jeshua son of Jozadak and his brothers: Maaseiah, Eliezer, Jarib, and Gedaliah.

¹⁹They pledged to send their wives away, and for their guilt they presented a ram from the flock as a guilt offering.

²Then Shecaniah son of Jehiel, an Elamite, said to Ezra: “We have been unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women from the people of the land, yet in spite of this, there is hope for Israel.

⁶For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His prized possession out of all peoples on the face of the earth.

¹When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to possess, and He drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you—

²and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you to defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy.

⁴When I heard these words, I sat down and wept. I mourned for days, fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

⁶Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell facedown before the ark of the Lord until evening, as did the elders of Israel; and they all sprinkled dust on their heads.

¹⁹For a time, Daniel, who was also known as Belteshazzar, was perplexed, and his thoughts alarmed him. So the king said, “Belteshazzar, do not let the dream or its interpretation alarm you.” “My lord,” replied Belteshazzar, “may the dream apply to those who hate you, and its interpretation to your enemies!

²⁰Then Job stood up, tore his robe, and shaved his head. He fell to the ground and worshiped,

²⁷I, Daniel, was exhausted and lay ill for days. Then I got up and went about the king’s business. I was confounded by the vision; it was beyond understanding.

⁴My spirit grows faint within me; my heart is dismayed inside me.

³So now let us make a covenant before our God to send away all the foreign wives and their children, according to the counsel of my lord and of those who tremble at the command of our God. Let it be done according to the Law.

²Has not My hand made all these things? And so they came into being,” declares the Lord. “This is the one I will esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, who trembles at My word.

³⁹Offer one lamb in the morning and the other at twilight.

⁴“Go throughout the city of Jerusalem,” said the Lord, “and put a mark on the foreheads of the men sighing and groaning over all the abominations committed there.”

¹³⁶My eyes shed streams of tears because Your law is not obeyed.

²⁷because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before God when you heard His words against this place and against its people, and because you have humbled yourself before Me and have torn your clothes and wept before Me, I have heard you,’ declares the Lord.

³⁸then may whatever prayer or petition Your people Israel make—each knowing his own afflictions and spreading out his hands toward this temple—

⁵⁴Now when Solomon had finished praying this entire prayer and petition to the Lord, he got up before the altar of the Lord, where he had been kneeling with his hands spread out toward heaven.

²²Then Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in front of the whole assembly of Israel, spread out his hands toward heaven,

³³Then Moses departed from Pharaoh, went out of the city, and spread out his hands to the Lord. The thunder and hail ceased, and the rain no longer poured down on the land.

²⁹Moses said to him, “When I have left the city, I will spread out my hands to the Lord. The thunder will cease, and there will be no more hail, so that you may know that the earth is the Lord’s.

²May my prayer be set before You like incense; my uplifted hands, like the evening offering.

⁵For her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.

⁴For my iniquities have overwhelmed me; they are a burden too heavy to bear.

⁹But a prophet of the Lord named Oded was there, and he went out to meet the army that returned to Samaria. “Look,” he said to them, “because of His wrath against Judah, the Lord, the God of your fathers, has delivered them into your hand. But you have slaughtered them in a rage that reaches up to heaven.

¹⁵O Lord, God of Israel, You are righteous! For we remain this day as a remnant. Here we are before You in our guilt, though because of it no one can stand before You.”

²¹The son declared, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

⁶Therefore I despise myself, and I repent in dust and ashes.”

⁶For our fathers were unfaithful and did evil in the sight of the Lord our God. They abandoned Him, turned their faces away from the dwelling place of the Lord, and turned their backs on Him.

⁵we have sinned and done wrong. We have acted wickedly and rebelled. We have turned away from Your commandments and ordinances.

⁶We have not listened to Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings, leaders, fathers, and all the people of the land.

²⁰When I have brought them into the land that I swore to give their fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey, they will eat their fill and prosper. Then they will turn to other gods and worship them, and they will reject Me and break My covenant.

²¹And when many troubles and afflictions have come upon them, this song will testify against them, because it will not be forgotten from the lips of their descendants. For I know their inclination, even before I bring them into the land that I swore to give them.”

¹⁶But they mocked the messengers of God, despising His words and scoffing at His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord against His people was stirred up beyond remedy.

¹⁷So He brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who put their young men to the sword in the sanctuary, sparing neither young men nor young women, neither elderly nor infirm. God gave them all into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar,

²²Then the generation to come—your sons who follow you and the foreigner who comes from a distant land—will see the plagues of the land and the sicknesses the Lord has inflicted on it.

²³All its soil will be a burning waste of sulfur and salt, unsown and unproductive, with no plant growing on it, just like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in His fierce anger.

⁹In the fourth year of Hezekiah’s reign, which was the seventh year of the reign of Hoshea son of Elah over Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria marched against Samaria and besieged it.

¹⁰And at the end of three years, the Assyrians captured it. So Samaria was captured in the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel.

³Consider me and respond, O Lord my God. Give light to my eyes, lest I sleep in death,

⁵In the same way, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace.

⁶And if it is by grace, then it is no longer by works. Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace.

²After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His presence.

¹¹Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Look, they are saying, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope has perished; we are cut off.’

¹²Therefore prophesy and tell them that this is what the Lord God says: ‘O My people, I will open your graves and bring you up from them, and I will bring you back to the land of Israel.

²O Lord, I have heard the report of You; I stand in awe, O Lord, of Your deeds. Revive them in these years; make them known in these years. In Your wrath, remember mercy!

¹⁵For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in a high and holy place, and with the oppressed and humble in spirit, to restore the spirit of the lowly and revive the heart of the contrite.

⁶this Ezra came up from Babylon. He was a scribe skilled in the Law of Moses, which the Lord, the God of Israel, had given. The king had granted Ezra all his requests, for the hand of the Lord his God was upon him.

²³He remembered us in our low estate His loving devotion endures forever.

²⁴and freed us from our enemies. His loving devotion endures forever.

⁶So he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of Hosts.

⁷What are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become a plain. Then he will bring forth the capstone accompanied by shouts of ‘Grace, grace to it!’”

⁹You expected much, but behold, it amounted to little. And what you brought home, I blew away. Why? declares the Lord of Hosts. Because My house still lies in ruins, while each of you is busy with his own house.

⁴⁵And He remembered His covenant with them, and relented by the abundance of His loving devotion.

⁴⁶He made them objects of compassion to all who held them captive.

⁵For I will be a wall of fire around it, declares the Lord, and I will be the glory within it.’”

¹⁹Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.

⁸O Lord, what can I say, now that Israel has turned its back and run from its enemies?

²²Because of the loving devotion of the Lord we are not consumed, for His mercies never fail.

⁴And I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed, “O, Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant of loving devotion to those who love Him and keep His commandments,

⁵we have sinned and done wrong. We have acted wickedly and rebelled. We have turned away from Your commandments and ordinances.

¹⁶“What can we say to my lord?” Judah replied. “How can we plead? How can we justify ourselves? God has exposed the iniquity of your servants. We are now my lord’s slaves—both we and the one who was found with the cup.”

²⁴Do not defile yourselves by any of these practices, for by all these things the nations I am driving out before you have defiled themselves.

²⁵Even the land has become defiled, so I am punishing it for its sin, and the land will vomit out its inhabitants.

²¹The Israelites who had returned from exile ate it, together with all who had separated themselves from the uncleanness of the peoples of the land to seek the Lord, the God of Israel.

¹²For whoever does these things is detestable to the Lord. And because of these detestable things, the Lord your God is driving out the nations before you.

²⁵I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols.

²⁶I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

³¹You must not worship the Lord your God in this way, because they practice for their gods every abomination which the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.

²And he did evil in the sight of the Lord by following the abominations of the nations that the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.

³Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons,

⁶You are not to seek peace or prosperity from them as long as you live.

¹²For if you turn away and cling to the rest of these nations that remain among you, and if you intermarry and associate with them,

¹³know for sure that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations before you. Instead, they will become for you a snare and a trap, a scourge in your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land that the Lord your God has given you.

¹⁵Do not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you, and you will eat their sacrifices.

¹⁶And when you take some of their daughters as brides for your sons, their daughters will prostitute themselves to their gods and cause your sons to do the same.

²²A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children, but the sinner’s wealth is passed to the righteous.

⁷The righteous man walks with integrity; blessed are his children after him.

¹⁰He has not dealt with us according to our sins or repaid us according to our iniquities.

³⁹Why should any mortal man complain, in view of his sins?

⁴⁰Let us examine and test our ways, and turn back to the Lord.

²²Because of the loving devotion of the Lord we are not consumed, for His mercies never fail.

⁶and disclose to you the secrets of wisdom, for true wisdom has two sides. Know then that God exacts from you less than your iniquity deserves.

⁶and said: “O my God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to lift up my face to You, my God, because our iniquities are higher than our heads, and our guilt has reached the heavens.

⁷From the days of our fathers to this day, our guilt has been great. Because of our iniquities, we and our kings and priests have been delivered into the hands of the kings of the earth and subjected to the sword and to captivity, to pillage and humiliation, as we are this day.

⁴⁵And He remembered His covenant with them, and relented by the abundance of His loving devotion.

⁴⁶He made them objects of compassion to all who held them captive.

⁸At Horeb you provoked the Lord, and He was angry enough to destroy you.

²Indeed, the Israelites have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and their sons, so that the holy seed has been mixed with the people of the land. And the leaders and officials have taken the lead in this unfaithfulness!”

¹⁴Leave Me alone, so that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven. Then I will make you into a nation mightier and greater than they are.”

¹⁴Afterward, Jesus found the man at the temple and said to him, “See, you have been made well. Stop sinning, or something worse may happen to you.”

¹What then shall we say? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may increase?

⁴⁵“Get away from this congregation so that I may consume them in an instant.” And Moses and Aaron fell facedown.

³If You, O Lord, kept track of iniquities, then who, O Lord, could stand?

²⁴That is why I told you that you would die in your sins. For unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.”

²¹Again He said to them, “I am going away, and you will look for Me, but you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.”

¹⁹Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.

³Because they were ignorant of God’s righteousness and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.

³Now Joshua was dressed in filthy garments as he stood before the angel.

⁴So the angel said to those standing before him, “Take off his filthy clothes!” Then he said to Joshua, “See, I have removed your iniquity, and I will clothe you with splendid robes.”