Dual Panel1When it was reported to Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab, and the rest of our enemies that I had rebuilt the wall and not a single gap remained in it -- although I had not yet set up the gates in the gateways --
2Sanballat and Geshem sent me an invitation to come and confer with them at Hakkephirim in the plain of Ono; their intention was to do me some harm.
3So I sent messengers to them with this reply: “I have important work on my hands at the moment and am unable to come down. Why should the work be brought to a standstill while I leave it and come down to you?”
4Four times they sent me a similar invitation, and each time I gave them the same answer.
5On a fifth occasion Sanballat made a similar approach, but this time his servant came with an open letter.
6It ran as follows: “It is reported among the nations, and Gashmu confirms it, that you and the Jews are plotting rebellion, and that is why you are building the wall; it is further reported that you yourself want to be king,
7and have even appointed prophets to make this proclamation concerning you in Jerusalem: ‘Judah has a king!’ Such matters will certainly get to the king's notice; so come at once and let us talk them over.”
8I sent this reply: “No such thing as you allege has taken place; your imagination has invented the whole story.”
9They were all trying to intimidate us, in the hope that we should then relax our efforts and that the work would never be completed. Strengthen me for the work, was my prayer.
10One day I went to the house of Shemaiah son of Delaiah, son of Mehetabel, for he was confined to his house. He said, “Let us meet in the house of God, within the sanctuary, and let us shut the doors, for they are coming to kill you, and they will come to do it by night.”
11But I said, “Should a man like me run away? Can a man like me go into the sanctuary to save his life? I will not go.”
12Then it dawned on me: God had not sent him. His prophecy aimed at harming me, and Tobiah and Sanballat had bribed him to utter it.
13He had been bribed to frighten me into compliance and into committing sin; then they could give me a bad name and discredit me.
14God, remember Tobiah and Sanballat for what they have done, and also the prophetess Noadiah and all the other prophets who tried to intimidate me!
15On the twenty-fifth day of the month of Elul the wall was finished; it had taken fifty-two days.
16When all our enemies heard of it, and all the surrounding nations saw it, they thought it a very wonderful achievement, and recognized it was by the help of our God that this work had been accomplished.
17In those days the nobles in Judah kept sending letters to Tobiah, and receiving replies from him,
18for many in Judah were in league with him, because he was a son-in-law of Shecaniah son of Arah, and his son Jehohanan had married a daughter of Meshullam son of Berechiah.
19They were always praising him in my presence and repeating to him what I said. Tobiah also wrote to me to intimidate me.