Nehemiah

6 And when the report came to Sanballat and Tobijah, and Gusham the Arab and the rest of our enemies, that I had built the wall and there were no breaches left in it (even up to that time I had not hung gates in the gateways), 2 Sanballat and Gusham sent word to me “Come, let us make an appointment for an interview in the villages on the Ono plain”—and they were planning to do me harm. 3 But I sent messengers to them with the word “I am doing a great piece of work and cannot go down; why should the work come to a stop while I take time off and go down to you?” 4 And they sent me this same word four times, and I gave them this same answer.

5 And Sanballat sent his man to me a fifth time on this same errand with an open letter in his hand 6 in which was written “There is a report among the nations, and Gushmu says, you and the Judahites are planning to rebel; that is why you are building the wall; and they are going to have you for king”; things of this sort. 7 “And you have also set up prophets to proclaim about you in Jerusalem ‘There is a king in Judah’; and now the report will come to the king”—things of this sort. “Now come on, let us talk it over.” 8 But I sent them word “There are no such facts as you say, but you are inventing them out of your own head.” 9* For they were all scaring us, thinking “Get them discouraged from the work, and it will not be done.” But as it was, he braced up my determination.

10 And I had gone into the house of Shemaʽiah the son of Delajah the son of Mehetabel, he being debarred, and he said “Let us make an appointment to meet in God’s house, in the interior of the temple, and shut the temple doors, because there are people coming in to kill you, coming in in the night to kill you.” 11 But I said “Is a man in my position to play the fugitive? and who in my position would go into the temple for his life? I will not go in.” 12* And I recognized it was not God that sent him, that he uttered the prophecy against me, but Tobijah and Sanballat had hired him 13* in order that I might be scared into doing so and sinning, and they might have it as a scandal to taunt me with. 14* My God, remember Tobijah and Sanballat suitably to these deeds of his, and also Noʽadiah the prophetess and the rest of the prophets who were scaring me.

15 And the wall was finished on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days. 16* And when all our enemies heard of it and all the nations around us saw it, they felt themselves decidedly set down and knew that the doing of this work came from our God.

17 Besides, in those days the aristocrats of Judah had many of their letters going to Tobijah and Tobijah’s coming to them; 18 for many in Judah were sworn to him because he was son-in-law to Shecaniah the son of Arah and his son Jehohanan had married the daughter of Meshullam the son of Berekiah. 19* They also kept talking of his good points before me and carrying my words to him. And Tobijah sent letters to scare me.