please let Your ear be attentive and Your eyes open to hear the prayer of Your servant which I am praying before You, day and night, on behalf of Your servants, the sons (descendants) of Israel (Jacob), confessing the sins of the sons of Israel which we have committed against You; I and my father’s house have sinned.

"And now, Lord, I ask you to listen to the prayer of your servant and to the prayers of your servants who delight in revering your Name. I ask you, please prosper your servant today by granting him to receive favor from this man." Now I was the king's senior security advisor.

Listen, our God, for we are despised. Make their insults return on their own heads and let them be taken as plunder to a land of captivity.

On the first day of the seventh month, Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly of men, women, and all who could listen with understanding.

"But they and our ancestors acted arrogantly and stiffened their neck and did not listen to your commandments.

They refused to listen and did not remember your wonders that you did among them. They stiffened their neck and in their rebellion {determined} to return to their slavery. But you are a God of forgiveness, gracious and compassionate, {slow to anger}, abundant in loyal love, so you did not abandon them.

And You admonished them and warned them to turn them back to Your law.
Yet they acted presumptuously and arrogantly and did not heed Your commandments, but sinned against Your ordinances,
Which by keeping, a man will live.
But they turned a stubborn shoulder, stiffened their neck, and would not listen.

“Yet You were patient with them for many years,
And admonished them and warned them by Your Spirit through Your prophets;
Still they would not listen.
Therefore You gave them into the hand (power) of the peoples of the lands.

Our kings, our officials, our priests, and our ancestors did not keep your law and did not listen to your commandments and statutes that you declared to them.

Do we then hear about you that you have done all this great evil, acting unfaithfully against our God by marrying foreign (pagan) women?”