1In the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, wine was set before him. I took up the wine and gave it to the king. I had never been sad in his presence before.
2So the king said to me, "Why does your face look sad, when you are not sick? This can only be sorrow of heart." Then I was very much afraid,
3and I said to the king, "May the king live for ever. Why should my face not be sad, when the city where my fathers are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire?"
4Then the king said to me, "What are you asking for?" So I prayed to the God of heaven.
5And I said to the king, "If it please the king, and if your servant has found favour with you, send me to Judah, to the city where my fathers are buried, so that I may build it again."
6The king said to me (the queen was sitting beside him), "How long will your journey take? When will you return?" So it pleased the king to send me, and I set him a time.
7I also said to the king, "If it please the king, let letters be given to me for the governors beyond the river, so that they will let me pass through until I come to Judah;"
8"and a letter to Asaph, the keeper of the king's forest, so that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the palace by the house, and for the wall of the city, and for the house I shall live in." And the king granted my requests, because the good hand of my God was upon me.
9Then I came to the governors beyond the river and gave them the king's letters. The king had also sent army captains and horsemen with me.
10When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, heard of it, they were very unhappy that a man had come to seek the good of the children of Israel.
11So I came to Jerusalem, and was there three days.
12Then I got up in the night, I and a few men with me. I told no one what my God had put in my heart to do at Jerusalem. There was no animal with me except the one I rode on.
13I went out by night through the gate of the valley, past the dragon well, and to the dung gate. I looked at the walls of Jerusalem, which were broken down, and its gates, which had been burned with fire.
14Then I went on to the gate of the fountain, and to the king's pool. But there was no room for the animal under me to pass.
15So I went up in the night by the brook and looked at the wall. Then I turned back and came in by the gate of the valley, and so returned.
16The rulers did not know where I had gone or what I had done. I had not yet told the Jews, or the priests, or the nobles, or the rulers, or the rest who would do the work.
17Then I said to them, "You see the trouble we are in. Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates are burned with fire. Come, let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, so that we are no longer a disgrace."
18Then I told them how the hand of my God had been good upon me, and also the words the king had spoken to me. And they said, "Let us rise up and build." So they put their hands to this good work with strength.
19But when Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian heard it, they laughed at us and made fun of us, and said, "What is this thing you are doing? Will you rebel against the king?"
20Then I answered them, "The God of heaven, he will give us success. So we his servants will rise up and build. But you have no share, no right, and no memorial in Jerusalem."