Ezra 9:15
O LORD God of Israel, thou art righteous: for we remain yet escaped, as it is this day: behold, we are before thee in our trespasses: for we cannot stand before thee because of this. O LORD God of Israel, thou art righteous: for we remain yet escaped, as it is this day: behold, we are before thee in our trespasses: for we cannot stand before thee because of this.
This closing sentence of Ezra's prayer was uttered at the time of the evening sacrifice, on his knees with hands spread out to God after tearing his garment and mantle over Israel's intermarriage with the surrounding peoples, in shame and blushing because iniquities were increased over the head and trespass grown up to the heavens. God is declared in it to be righteous in showing mercy, for the people had escaped deserved punishment despite great sins and survive only as a remnant yet escaped by grace for a little space. He is also declared righteous in judging Israel, while the people remain alive only by His mercy despite their trespasses.
That sparing grace means Israel was punished less than iniquities deserved and was not forsaken in bondage but was given a nail in the holy place, lightened eyes and a little reviving in bondage, with mercy extended in the sight of the kings of Persia to set up the house of God, repair its desolations and give a wall in Judah and Jerusalem. This came after they with their kings and priests had since the days of their fathers been delivered for trespass into the hand of the kings of the lands to the sword, captivity, spoil and confusion of face. The trespass in view is breaking the commandments given through the prophets by joining in affinity with the people of abominations, mingling with the heathen. The people therefore stand before God in their trespasses still guilty and unable to stand before Him because of this sin.
To break the covenant again after such deliverance would deserve consuming anger until there should be no remnant nor escaping, since deliverance does not excuse disobedience but makes renewed covenant-breaking especially culpable. The verse shows Ezra humbling himself before God, confessing his own sins and the sins of his people and entreating pardon as if he himself were the offender, a work of humble confession, patient toil, prayer and suffering shared by Nehemiah. That work of confession and reform was made most difficult not by the open hostility of the heathen but by the secret opposition of pretended friends, who lent their influence to the service of evil, furnished the enemies with material for warfare against the people, and whose evil passions and rebellious wills warred against the plain requirements of God, increasing tenfold the burden of God's servants. Such true humiliation of soul and contrition prevails with God in prayer, working repentance and weeping and trembling as the heinousness of sin, the horror with which God regards it, and the sacredness of the law spoken at Sinai are realized.