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after King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia had deported Jehoiachin, the rulers, the skilled workers, the nobles, and the common people and had taken them from Jerusalem to Babylon.
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The people wrote: Please use the money we are sending you to buy animals for the burnt offerings and the sin offerings, to buy incense, and to provide the grain offerings. Offer them on the altar of the Lord our God,
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and pray for King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia and his son Belshazzar, that they may live as long as the heavens last.
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Then the Lord will strengthen us and be our guide. Nebuchadnezzar and his son Belshazzar will protect us, and we will be loyal to them as long as we live; then they will be pleased with us.
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We ask you also to pray to the Lord God for us, because we have sinned against him, and he is still angry with us.
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Please read this book that we are sending you and make your own confession of sin in the Temple on the first day of the Festival of Shelters and on other holy days of assembly.
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This is the confession you should make: "The Lord our God is righteous, but we are still covered with shame. All of us - the people of Judah, the people of Jerusalem,
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our kings, our rulers, our priests, our prophets, and our ancestors have been put to shame,
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because we have sinned against the Lord our God
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and have disobeyed him. We did not listen to him or live according to his commandments.
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From the day the Lord brought our ancestors out of Egypt until the present day, we have continued to be unfaithful to him, and we have not hesitated to disobey him.