1Then Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arabian, and the rest of our enemies heard that I had built the wall, and that no gap was left in it. (At that time I had not yet set up the doors in the gateways.)
2So Sanballat and Geshem sent me this message: "Come, let us meet together in one of the villages on the plain of Ono." But they were planning to harm me.
3So I sent messengers to them with this answer: "I am doing a great work, so I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you?"
4They sent me the same message four times, and I answered them the same way each time.
5Then, the fifth time, Sanballat sent his servant to me with the same message. In his hand was an open letter.
6In it was written: "It is reported among the nations, and Gashmu says it too, that you and the Jews are planning to rebel. That is why you are building the wall, so that you may be their king, according to this report."
7"And you have also appointed prophets to announce about you in Jerusalem, 'There is a king in Judah.' Now this will be reported to the king. So come, and let us talk it over together."
8Then I sent him this answer: "No such things as you say are happening. You are making them up out of your own heart."
9They were all trying to make us afraid, thinking, "Their hands will grow weak, and the work will not be done." Now therefore, O God, strengthen my hands.
10Afterward I went to the house of Shemaiah son of Delaiah, the son of Mehetabeel, who was shut in. He said, "Let us meet together in the house of God, inside the temple, and let us shut the temple doors. For they are coming to kill you. Yes, in the night they are coming to kill you."
11But I said, "Should a man like me run away? And who, being such a man as I am, would go into the temple to save his life? I will not go in."
12I saw clearly that God had not sent him. He had spoken this prophecy against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him.
13He was hired so that I would be afraid and do this and sin, and so they would have something to use for an evil report, to shame me.
14My God, remember Tobiah and Sanballat for what they have done, and also the prophetess Noadiah and the rest of the prophets who tried to make me afraid.
15So the wall was finished on the twenty-fifth day of the month Elul, in fifty-two days.
16When all our enemies heard of it, and all the nations around us saw these things, they lost all their confidence. For they knew that this work had been done by our God.
17Also in those days the nobles of Judah sent many letters to Tobiah, and letters from Tobiah came to them.
18For many in Judah had sworn an oath to him, because he was the son-in-law of Shechaniah son of Arah, and his son Johanan had married the daughter of Meshullam son of Berechiah.
19They also spoke of his good deeds in front of me, and told him what I said. And Tobiah sent letters to make me afraid.