Dual Panel1One day, in the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when his wine was ready, I took it and handed it to the king, and as I stood before him my face revealed my unhappiness.
2The king asked, “Why do you look so unhappy? You are not ill; it can be nothing but a feeling of unhappiness.” I was very much afraid,
3but I answered, “May the king live for ever! But how can I help looking unhappy when the city where my forefathers are buried lies in ruins with its gates burnt down?”
4“What then do you want?” asked the king. With a prayer to the God of heaven,
5I answered, “If it please your majesty, and if I enjoy your favour, I beg you to send me to Judah, to the city where my forefathers are buried, so that I may rebuild it.”
6The king, with the queen consort sitting beside him, asked me, “How long will the journey last, and when will you return?” When I told him how long I should be, the king approved the request and let me go.
7I then said to him, “If it please your majesty, let letters be given me for the governors in the province of Beyond-Euphrates, with orders to grant me safe passage until I reach Judah.
8Let me have also a letter for Asaph, the keeper of your royal forests, instructing him to supply me with timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel, which adjoins the temple, and for the city wall, and for the temple which is the object of my journey.” The king granted my requests, for the gracious hand of my God was upon me.
The city walls rebuilt
9I CAME in due course to the governors in the province of Beyond-Euphrates and presented the king's letters to them; the king had given me an escort of army officers with cavalry.
10But when Sanballat the Horonite and the slave Tobiah, an Ammonite, heard this, they were greatly displeased that someone should have come to promote the interests of the Israelites.
11WHEN I arrived in Jerusalem, I waited three days.
12Then I set out by night, taking a few men with me, but without telling anyone what my God was prompting me to do for Jerusalem. Taking no beast with me except the one on which I myself rode,
13I went out by night through the Valley Gate towards the Dragon Spring and the Dung Gate; and I inspected the places where the walls of Jerusalem had been broken down, and its gates, which had been destroyed by fire.
14Then I passed on to the Fountain Gate and the King's Pool; but there was no room for me to ride through.
15I went up the valley by night and inspected the city wall; then I re-entered the city through the Valley Gate. So I arrived back
16without the magistrates knowing where I had been or what I was doing, for I had not yet told the Jews, neither the priests, the nobles, the magistrates, nor any of those who would be responsible for the work.
17Then I said to them, “You see what trouble we are in: Jerusalem lies in ruins, its gates destroyed by fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem and suffer derision no more.”
18I told them also how the gracious hand of my God had been upon me and also what the king had said to me. They replied, “Let us start the rebuilding,” and they set about the work vigorously and to good purpose.
19But when Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite slave, and Geshem the Arab heard of it, they jeered at us, asking contemptuously, “What is this you are doing? Is this a rebellion against the king?”
20But I answered, “The God of heaven will grant us success. We, his servants, are making a start with the rebuilding. But you have no stake, or claim, or traditional right in Jerusalem.”