and said, "I beg you, LORD, the God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and loving kindness with those who love him and keep his commandments:

"Remember, I beg you, the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, 'If you trespass, I will scatter you abroad among the peoples;

Lord, I beg you, let your ear be attentive now to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants, who delight to fear your name; and please prosper your servant this day, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man." Now I was cup bearer to the king.

Then went I up in the night by the brook, and viewed the wall; and I turned back, and entered by the valley gate, and so returned.

"Hear, our God; for we are despised; and turn back their reproach on their own head, give them up for a spoil in a land of captivity;

My God put into my heart to gather together the nobles, and the rulers, and the people, that they might be reckoned by genealogy. I found the book of the genealogy of those who came up at the first, and I found written therein:

All the people gathered themselves together as one man into the broad place that was before the water gate; and they spoke to Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the LORD had commanded to Israel.

He read therein before the broad place that was before the water gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women, and of those who could understand; and 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; (for he was above all the people;) and when he opened it, all the people stood up:

They read in the book, in the law of God, distinctly; and they gave the sense, so that they understood the reading.

Also day by day, from the first day to the last day, he read in the book of the law of God. They kept the feast seven days; and on the eighth day was a solemn assembly, according to the ordinance.

They stood up in their place, and read in the book of the law of the LORD their God a fourth part of the day; and a fourth part they confessed, and worshiped the LORD their God.

"Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against you, and cast your law behind their back, and killed your prophets that testified against them to turn them again to you, and they committed awful blasphemies.

The sons of Levi, heads of ancestral houses, were written in the book of the chronicles, even until the days of Johanan the son of Eliashib.

On that day they read in the book of Moses in the audience of the people; and therein was found written, that an Ammonite and a Moabite should not enter into the assembly of God forever,