67 Then they took the decree the emperor had given them and gave it to the governors and officials of Greater Syria and Phoenicia, who then honoured the Jewish people and the Temple of the Lord.
68 After all this had been done, some of the leaders of the people of Israel came and told me that
69 the people, the leaders, the priests, and the Levites had not kept themselves separate from the people in the neighbouring countries of Edom, Moab, and Egypt, or from the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, and Jebusites. They were doing the same disgusting things that those people did.
70 God's holy people had become contaminated because Jewish men were marrying foreign women. Even the leaders and the officials had taken part in this breaking of the Law from the very beginning.
71 As soon as I heard this, I tore my clothes and my sacred robe in despair. I also tore my hair and my beard, and sat down crushed with anxiety and grief.
72 I sat there grieving about this sin until it was time for the evening sacrifice to be offered, when people began to gather round me — all those who were disturbed by what the Lord of Israel had said.
73 Then I got up from where I had been fasting, and still wearing my torn clothes, I knelt in prayer and stretched out my hands to the Lord.