And Judah said, “What shall we say to my lord? What shall we speak? Or how shall we clear ourselves? God has found out the iniquity of your servants; behold, we are, my lord’s servants, both we and he also in whose possession the cup was found.”
which You commanded by Your servants the prophets, saying, ‘The land you are entering to possess is an unclean land, with the impurity of the peoples of the lands, with their abominations which have filled it from one end to another, with their uncleanness.
For though we were slaves, our God has not forsaken us in our bondage but has extended mercy to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, granting us a reviving for the rebuilding of the house of our God, for the repairing of its ruins, and for giving us a wall in Judah and in Jerusalem.
For many years You endured them and warned them by Your Spirit in Your prophets, yet they would not listen. Therefore, You gave them into the hand of the people of the lands.
For our kings, princes, priests, and fathers have failed to keep Your law and did not obey Your commandments and Your warnings even when You confronted them.
Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced, and all the world may become accountable to God.