And after …: The connective conjunction (And) with the prepositional phrase after … introduces the next long sentence in Ezra’s prayer. Verses 13-14a are one sentence in Hebrew as in Revised Standard Version, which may be summarized as follows: “13 If all this has fallen on us, even though it is really less than we deserve, 14 then how can we…?” It can be separated as Good News Translation has done. Some translations take the second half of verse 13 as elliptical and set it off with long dashes (so New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, Revised English Bible, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible), but the Hebrew syntax makes it an integral part of the statement of what has happened to them.

Evil deeds … great guilt: Similarly to verse 6 above, near synonyms are used by the author to express the cause of the bad events that have befallen the Jews. Here both are qualified by an adjective: the deeds are evil and the guilt is great as it was in verse 7.

Seeing that could be better translated “yet,” “when” or “though,” since it introduces concessive clauses. Revised English Bible says “although” (also Nouvelle version Segond révisée, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible).

Thou, our God: Ezra speaks to God dramatically, using the independent second person singular pronoun for emphasis and focus. The translator should use an equally emphatic grammatical construction to draw attention to the mercy of God over against the faithlessness of the people. It should be remembered here that in Hebrew the second person singular is the normal form for speaking to another person, whether that person is an inferior or a superior. The receptor language should use the appropriate emphatic form, at the same time showing respect to God in this context.

Hast punished us less than our iniquities deserved: The sense of the word punished is “to cause suffering” to someone because of some wrong or evil that person has done. Here it is God who has punished his people because of their sins or their faithlessness. However, it is acknowledged that God has not punished them according to the degree of their sins. Less is literally “below.” Even as the sins of the people reached up to the heavens (Ezra 9.6), their punishment was “below” the true height of their sins. This may be translated “you did not show us suffering equal to our wrongdoings.” For iniquities see verse 6 above.

A remnant such as this: See verse 8 above. Ezra refers here to those people who have returned to Jerusalem from captivity.

Quoted with permission from Noss, Philip A. and Thomas, Kenneth J. A Handbook on Ezra. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2005. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .