They said to them: “Do not bring the captives here, for what you are planning will make us guilty before the Lord and increase our sins and our guilt. Great is our guilt, and there is burning anger upon Israel.”
But now, give praise to the Lord, the God of your ancestors, and do his will: separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from the foreign women.”
All the men of Judah and Benjamin gathered together in Jerusalem within the three-day period: it was in the ninth month, on the twentieth day of the month. All the people, sitting in the open place before the house of God, were trembling both over the matter at hand and because it was raining.
shall we again violate your commandments by intermarrying with these abominable peoples? Would you not become so angered with us as to destroy us without remnant or survivor?
I said: “My God, I am too ashamed and humiliated to raise my face to you, my God, for our wicked deeds are heaped up above our heads and our guilt reaches up to heaven.
And now here you are, offspring of sinful stock, rising up in your ancestors’ place to add still more to the Lord’s blazing anger against the Israelites.