The speech of Ezra here in verses 10-11 makes the same points and incorporates vocabulary that has been used in this chapter and the preceding one (9.1, 12; 10.2, 3):
1) the people had broken the Law by marrying foreign women,
2) they had increased the guilt of Israel, so
3) they must make confession,
4) they must do God’s will, and
5) they must separate from the peoples of the lands and from the foreign wives.

And Ezra the priest stood up: Ezra is introduced into the narrative according to his function within the Jewish community (see Ezra 7.11), and his action is marked by the gesture of standing up to address the people. The scene is dramatic and formal and should be so presented in the translation.

And said to them, “You have trespassed: The words of Ezra are given as a direct quotation and they begin with the independent second person plural pronoun You. Chouraqui expresses the dramatic accusation of Ezra as “You you have rebelled,” but most versions fail to reflect the emphasis of the Hebrew pronoun. In languages where an independent pronoun can achieve similar emphasis as in Hebrew, it should be used.

Trespassed is an archaic English word that means “to break a law” or “to sin.” In verse 2 above, the same Hebrew word is translated “broken faith.” Ezra repeats what Shecaniah had said. Good News Translation has “You have been faithless,” and Traduction œcuménique de la Bible says “You have been unfaithful.”

Married foreign women: The same expression is used here as was used in Shecaniah’s confession. See the comments on verse 2 above.

Increased the guilt of Israel: Four times Ezra had mentioned guilt in his prayer. He spoke of the height of their guilt (9.6), twice he referred to the size of their guilt (9.7,13), and he mentioned their presence before God in their guilt (9.15). Here he says that by their actions they have “made the guilt of Israel grow bigger” (Traduction œcuménique de la Bible) or they have “added to the guilt of Israel” (Chouraqui, Darby, New Jerusalem Bible). In some languages this may be expressed “you have increased the words upon the head of the people of Israel.”

Hebrew links the first two parts of Ezra’s opening sentence with the connective conjunction. The third part of the sentence is brought in by an infinitive construction. Literally the whole sentence reads “You trespassed and married foreign women to add to the guilt of Israel.” Revised Standard Version retains the first and from the Hebrew text but restructures the end of the sentence by introducing it with the conjunction and adverb and so. Good News Translation restructures the entire sentence to show the meaning of the three parts in relationship to each other. More explicitly, it can be rendered “You have been unfaithful to God by marrying foreign women and have thus made the guilt of the people of Israel greater than before.”

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 .