Ezra 9:13

¹³“What has happened to us is a result of our evil deeds and our great guilt, and yet, our God, you have punished us less than our sins deserved and have given us a remnant like this.c

Ezra 9 records a crisis of covenant faithfulness. Ezra learns that the returned exiles, including priests and Levites, have intermarried with the surrounding peoples who practice idolatry. This is not a matter of ethnic purity but of spiritual fidelity: such marriages had led Isr