⁴ When I heard these things, I sat down and wept.^(A) For some days I mourned and fasted^(B) and prayed before the God of heaven. ⁵ Then I said:

⁴ The king said to me, “What is it you want?”

Then I prayed to the God of heaven, ⁵ and I answered the king, “If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my ancestors are buried so that I can rebuild it.”

³ Tobiah^(A) the Ammonite, who was at his side, said, “What they are building—even a fox climbing up on it would break down their wall of stones!”^(B)

⁴ Hear us, our God, for we are despised.^(C) Turn their insults back on their own heads. Give them over as plunder in a land of captivity. ⁵ Do not cover up their guilt^(D) or blot out their sins from your sight,^(E) for they have thrown insults in the face of^[a] the builders.

⁶ So we rebuilt the wall till all of it reached half its height, for the people worked with all their heart.

⁷ But when Sanballat, Tobiah,^(F) the Arabs, the Ammonites and the people of Ashdod heard that the repairs to Jerusalem’s walls had gone ahead and that the gaps were being closed, they were very angry. ⁸ They all plotted together^(G) to come and fight against Jerusalem and stir up trouble against it. ⁹ But we prayed to our God and posted a guard day and night to meet this threat.

¹² “We will give it back,” they said. “And we will not demand anything more from them. We will do as you say.”

Then I summoned the priests and made the nobles and officials take an oath^(A) to do what they had promised. ¹³ I also shook^(B) out the folds of my robe and said, “In this way may God shake out of their house and possessions anyone who does not keep this promise. So may such a person be shaken out and emptied!”

At this the whole assembly said, “Amen,”^(C) and praised the Lord. And the people did as they had promised.

⁹ They were all trying to frighten us, thinking, “Their hands will get too weak for the work, and it will not be completed.”

But I prayed, “Now strengthen my hands.”

¹⁰ One day I went to the house of Shemaiah son of Delaiah, the son of Mehetabel, who was shut in at his home. He said, “Let us meet in the house of God, inside the temple^(A), and let us close the temple doors, because men are coming to kill you—by night they are coming to kill you.”

¹¹ But I said, “Should a man like me run away? Or should someone like me go into the temple to save his life? I will not go!” ¹² I realized that God had not sent him, but that he had prophesied against me^(B) because Tobiah and Sanballat^(C) had hired him. ¹³ He had been hired to intimidate me so that I would commit a sin by doing this, and then they would give me a bad name to discredit me.^(D)

¹⁴ Remember^(E) Tobiah and Sanballat,^(F) my God, because of what they have done; remember also the prophet^(G) Noadiah and how she and the rest of the prophets^(H) have been trying to intimidate me. ¹⁵ So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days.