80 Even when we were slaves you did not abandon us; you made the emperors of Persia favour us, so that they gave us food,
81 restored the glory of your Temple, rebuilt the city of Jerusalem out of its ruins, and gave us a place of security here in Judah and Jerusalem.
82 “But now, Lord, what can we say, after you have done all this for us? We have again disobeyed the commands that you gave us through your servants, the prophets. They told us that
83 the land we were to occupy was an impure land because the heathen people who lived in it filled it with their disgusting deeds.
84 They told us that we should never intermarry with those people
85 and never seek peaceful relations with them if we wanted to be strong and enjoy the land and pass it on to our descendants for ever.
86 Even after everything that has happened to us in punishment for our sins, we know that you, Lord, have punished us less than we deserve