While Ezra prayed and acknowledged their guilt, weeping and prostrate before the house of God, a very large assembly of Israelites gathered about him, men, women, and children; and the people wept profusely.
Speak to them this word: Let my eyes stream with tears night and day, without rest, Over the great destruction which overwhelms the virgin daughter of my people, over her incurable wound.
and the Lord said to him: Pass through the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and mark an X on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the abominations practiced within it.