10
They and their wives and their children and their cattle and every resident alien and hired laborer and purchased slave—they all put sackcloth around their waists.
8
So the Israelites did as they had been ordered by the high priest Joakim and the senate of the whole people of Israel, in session at Jerusalem.
9
And every man of Israel cried out to God with great fervor, and they humbled themselves with much fasting.
10
They and their wives and their children and their cattle and every resident alien and hired laborer and purchased slave—they all put sackcloth around their waists.
11
And all the Israelite men, women, and children living at Jerusalem prostrated themselves before the temple and put ashes on their heads and spread out their sackcloth before the Lord.
12
They even draped the altar with sackcloth and cried out in unison, praying fervently to the God of Israel not to allow their infants to be carried off and their wives to be taken as booty, and the towns they had inherited to be destroyed, and the sanctuary to be profaned and desecrated to the malicious joy of the Gentiles.
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.