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2 And it came to pass in the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king, when I had charge of the wine, that I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had not beforetime been sad. 2 And the king said to me, ’Why is your countenance sad, since you are not sick? This is nothing else but sorrow heart.’ Then I was greatly afraid, 3 and I said to the king, ’Let the king live forever: why should not my countenance be sad, when the city, the place of my father’s sepulchres, lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?’ 4 And then the king said to me, ’For what do you make a request?’ So I prayed to the God of heaven. 5 And I said to the king, ’If it please the king, and if your servant had found favor in your sight, that you would send me to Judah, to the city of my father’s sepulchres, that I may rebuild it.’ 6 And the king said to me (and the queen was also sitting by him), ’For how long will you return?’ Then it pleased the king to send me; for I set him a time. 7 Moreover I said to the king, If it please the king, let official letters be given me to the governors of the province beyond the River, that they may let me pass through until I come to Judah, 8 and a letter to Asaph the keeper of the king’s park, that he may give me the timber to make beams for the gates of the castle, which belongs to the temple, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall enter. And the king granted me this, according to the hand of my God which kindly cared for me.
9 Then I came to the governors of the province beyond the River, and gave them the king’s official letters. Now the king had sent with me military officers and horsemen. 10 And when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah, the Ammonite slave, heard of it, it troubled them exceedingly, that one had come to seek the welfare of the Israelites. 11 So I came to Jerusalem and was there three days. 12 And I arose in the night, together with a few of my followers, and I told no man what my God had put into my heart to do for Jerusalem, neither was there any beast with me, except the beast upon which I rode. 13 And I went out by night through the Valley Gate, toward the Dragon’s Well and to the Dung Gate, and investigated carefully the walls of Jerusalem, which were broken down, and where its gates had been destroyed by fire. 14 Then I went on to the Fountain Gate and to the King’s Pool, but there was no place for the beast that was under me to pass. 15 Then I went up in the night by the Brook Kidron and investigated carefully the wall, then I turned back and entered by the Valley Gate, and so returned. 16 And the rulers did not know where I went or what I did, neither had I as yet told it to the Jews nor to the priests nor to the rulers nor to the rest who did the work.
17 Then I said to them, ’You see the bad condition in which we are, how Jerusalem lies in ruins and its gates are destroyed by fire. Come and let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, that we be no more an object of reproach.’ 18 And I told them of the hand of my God, which had kindly cared for me, as also the king’s words that he had spoken to me. And they said, ’Let us rise and up and build.’ So they strengthened their hands for the good work. 19 But when Sanballat, the Horonite and Tobiah, the Ammonite slave, and Geshem the Arabian heard it, they jeered at us and despised us, and said, ’What is this thing that you are doing? Will you rebel against the king?’ 20 Then I answered and said to them, ’The God of heaven, he will give us success, for we his servants will proceed to build; but you shall have no portion nor right nor memorial in Jerusalem.’