For true and just are his judgments, who hath judged the great harlot which corrupted the earth with her fornication, and hath revenged the blood of his servants, at her hands.
I said: Surely thou wilt fear me, thou wilt receive correction: and her dwelling shall not perish, for all things wherein I have visited her: but they rose early and corrupted all their thoughts.
This Esdras went up from Babylon, and he was a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which the Lord God had given to Israel. And the king granted him all his request, according to the hand of the Lord his God upon him.
And he did that which was right before the Lord, according to all that Ozias his father had done, only that he entered not into the temple of the Lord, and the people still transgressed.
But he slew not their children, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, where the Lord commanded, saying: The fathers shall not be slain for the children, nor the children for their fathers, but every man shall die for his own sin.
And keep the charge of the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and observe his ceremonies, and his precepts, and judgments, and testimonies, as it is written in the law of Moses: that thou mayest understand all thou dost, and whithersoever thou shalt turn thyself.
These are the precepts, and ceremonies, and judgments, which the Lord your God commanded that I should teach you: and that you should do them in the land into which you pass over to possess it:
And Moses called all Israel, and said to them: Hear, O Israel, the ceremonies and judgments, which I speak in your ears this day. Learn them, and fulfil them in work.
And now, O Israel, hear the commandments and judgments which I teach thee that doing them thou mayst live, and entering in mayst possess the land which the Lord the God of your fathers will give you.
Woe to the sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a wicked seed, ungracious children: they have forsaken the Lord, they have blasphemed the Holy One of Israel, they are gone away backwards.