Then I said to them, “You are holy to the Lord, just as these vessels are holy. The silver and the gold are a voluntary offering to the Lord, the God of your fathers.

Then Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have behaved in an unfaithful manner by taking foreign wives! This has contributed to the guilt of Israel.

which you commanded us through your servants the prophets with these words: ¹  ‘The land that you are entering to possess is a land defiled by the impurities of the local residents! ²  With their abominations they have filled it from one end to the other with their filthiness.