Now therefore give not your daughters to their sons, neither take their daughters to your sons, nor seek their peace or their prosperity for ever; that ye may be strong, and eat the good of the land, and leave it for an inheritance to your children for ever.
Ezra 9:10 And now, what shall we say, our God, after this? for we have forsaken thy commandments,
Ezra 9:11 which thou hast commanded by thy servants the prophets, saying, The land, unto which ye go to possess [it], is an unclean land through the filthiness of the peoples of the lands, through their abominations with which they have filled it from one end to another through their uncleanness.
Ezra 9:12 Now therefore give not your daughters to their sons, neither take their daughters to your sons, nor seek their peace or their prosperity for ever; that ye may be strong, and eat the good of the land, and leave it for an inheritance to your children for ever.
Ezra 9:13 And after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great trespass, seeing that thou our God hast punished us less than our iniquities [deserve], and hast given us such deliverance as this,
Ezra 9:14 should we again break thy commandments, and join in affinity with the peoples of these abominations? wouldest thou not be angry with us till thou hadst consumed us, so that there should be no remnant nor any to escape?
The verse centers on "therefore", "give", "daughters", "sons", "neither", and "take". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "therefore" and "give", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.
The nearby context moves from verse 11's "which thou hast commanded by thy servants..." into verse 13's "And after all that is come upon...", so "therefore" and "give" belong inside that flow. In Ezra context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.
A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "therefore" and "give" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.