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This is still a very early look into the unfinished text of the Open English Translation of the Bible. Please double-check the text in advance before using in public.
6 Although we didn’t yet have any doors in the gates, when Sanballat and Toviyyah and Geshem the Arabian and the rest of our enemies heard that we’d finished building the wall so it didn’t have any gaps left in it, 2 Sanballat and Geshem invited me, “We’d like to arrange to meet with you in one of the villages on the Ono plain.” But they were intending to harm me. 3 So I sent messengers back to them, “This work is important and extensive, so I can’t afford to abandon it and have the work stop if I travelled down to you on the plain.”
4 They tried four times to get me to go, but I kept refusing them for those same reasons.
5 Then Sanballat sent his servant to me a fifth time with the same request, but this time in an unsealed, open letter 6 saying, “There’s rumours flying around in nearby countries, and Geshem confirms it, that you and the Jews are building the wall because you’re all plotting thinking to rebel. Then you’d become their king, according to what we’re hearing. 7 We’ve also heard that you’ve set up ‘prophets’ to speak out in Yerushalem to say about you, ‘There’s a king in Yehudah.’ By now, all of that will have been heard by the Persian king. So now, come and let’s discuss this together.”
8 I sent a message straight back, “None of what you’re saying is true. It’s simply your own imagination at work.”
9 We knew that they were just trying to frighten us so that we’d stop the repairs and it would never get finished.
My God, strengthen my hands.
10 After that, I entered Shemayah’s house (the son of Mehetav’el’s son Delayah) who was confined to his house, and he said, “Let’s set a time to meet in the temple—we’ll shut the temple doors because they’ll be coming to kill you—probably in the night.”
11 But I disagreed, “Would a man like me run away? Besides that, who’s allowed to live inside the temple? I won’t do that.”
12 Then I suddenly realised that God hadn’t told him to say that, but rather he was working against me because he’d been paid by Toviyyah and Sanballat. 13 They must have hired him so that I’d be afraid and take that advice and sin. Then they could have ruined my reputation and discredited me.
14 My God, remember what Toviyyah and Sanballat have done, and also the prophetess Noadyah and the other prophets who’ve been trying to scare me.
15 So the rebuilding of the wall was finished on the 25th of September in just fifty-two days, 16 and when our enemies heard about it, the surrounding countries were afraid and discouraged because they realised that our God must have helped us.
17 During that time, the Yehudah nobles were sending many letters to Toviyyah, and letters from Toviyyah were also coming to them, 18 because many people in Yehudah had ties with him because he was the son-in-law of Arah’s son Shekanyah, plus his son Yehohanan had married Berekyah’s daughter Meshullam. 19 Those nobles kept telling me about the good things he was doing, and they reported my words back to him. Toviyyah also sent letters to try to frighten me.