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`The land which you are entering to take possession of it is a land polluted with the pollution of the aliens of the land, and they have filled it with their uncleanness.
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Therefore do not give your daughters in marriage to their sons, and do not take their daughters for your sons;
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and do not seek ever to have peace with them, in order that you may be strong and eat the good things of the land and leave it for an inheritance to your children for ever.'
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And all that has happened to us has come about because of our evil deeds and our great sins. For thou, O Lord, didst lift the burden of our sins
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and give us such a root as this; but we turned back again to transgress thy law by mixing with the uncleanness of the peoples of the land.
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Wast thou not angry enough with us to destroy us without leaving a root or seed or name?
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O Lord of Israel, thou art true; for we are left as a root to this day.
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Behold, we are now before thee in our iniquities; for we can no longer stand in thy presence because of these things."
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While Ezra was praying and making his confession, weeping and lying upon the ground before the temple, there gathered about him a very great throng from Jerusalem, men and women and youths; for there was great weeping among the multitude.
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Then Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, one of the men of Israel, called out, and said to Ezra, "We have sinned against the Lord, and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land; but even now there is hope for Israel.
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Let us take an oath to the Lord about this, that we will put away all our foreign wives, with their children,