Then the king stood by the pillar and cut a covenant before Adonai, to follow Adonai, keep His mitzvot, His laws and His decrees with all their heart and soul, in order to fulfill the words of this covenant that were written in this scroll. So all the people stood for the covenant.
Do not stiffen your neck as your fathers did, but reconcile to Adonai, and come to His Temple, which He has consecrated forever, and worship Adonai your God that His burning anger may turn away from you.
Let our leaders stand for the whole assembly. Let everyone in our cities who has married a foreign woman come at an appointed time, and with them the elders of each city and its judges, until the burning wrath of our God is turned back from us in this matter.”
So now let us make a covenant with our God to send away all these women and their offspring, in accordance with the counsel of my lord and of those who fear the commands of our God. Let it be done according to the Torah.
Ezra blessed Adonai, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen, amen!” as they lifted up of their hands. Then they bowed down and worshiped Adonai with their faces to the ground.
Go! Proclaim these words toward the north, saying: “Return backsliding Israel,” says Adonai. “I will no longer frown on you, for I am merciful,” says Adonai. “I will not keep a grudge forever.
Now you had repented, and had done that which is right in My eyes, by proclaiming liberty everyone to his neighbor. You even had made a covenant before Me in the House where My Name is called.
I will give the men who have transgressed My covenant, who have not performed the words of the covenant which they made before Me, when they cut the calf in two and passed between its parts
They will ask about Zion, the way— here are their faces! Come! They will join themselves to Adonai in an everlasting covenant that will never be forgotten.
They raised over him a great heap of stones that stands to this day. Then Adonai turned from the fierceness of His anger. Therefore the name of that place has been called the Valley of Achor to this day.