and I said to them: "We ourselves have bought back our brothers the Jews who were sold to the nations as we were able. But now you yourselves have sold your brothers so they may be sold to us!" They were silent and could not find a word [to say].

Then my God put into my heart to assemble the nobles, the prefects, and the people to be enrolled. I found the book of the genealogy of those who first came back, and I found [this] written upon it:

All of the people gathered as one to the public square before the Water Gate. They asked Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses that Yahweh had commanded Israel.

He read from it facing the public square before the Water Gate from dawn until noon that day, opposite the men, women, and those with understanding. The ears of all the people [were attentive] to the book of the law.

Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, because he was above all of the people. When he opened it all the people stood up.

So they read the book from the law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that they could understand the reading.

They stood up in their place and read from the book of the law of Yahweh their God for a fourth part of the day, and for a fourth they were confessing and worshiping Yahweh their God.

"But they rebelled and were rebellious against you and cast your law behind their back and killed your prophets, who had warned them to turn back to you, and they did great blasphemies.

On that day the book of Moses was read in the hearing of the people and it was found written in it that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever come into the assembly of God

And then I came to learn that the food of the Levites had not been given to them, so that the Levites and the singers, the doers of the work, had gone back each to his field.