[an error occurred while processing this directive] | Berean Study Bible |
1[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 1When Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab, and the rest of our enemies heard that I had rebuilt the wall and not a gap was left—though to that time I had not yet installed the doors in the gates— |
2[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 2Sanballat 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. |
3[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 3So I sent messengers to them, saying, “I am doing a great work and cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it to go down to you?” |
4[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 4Four times they sent me the same message, and each time I gave the same reply. |
5[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 5The fifth time, Sanballat sent me this same message by his young servant, who had in his hand an unsealed letter |
6[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 6that read: “It is reported among the nations—and Geshem agrees—that you and the Jews are plotting to revolt, and this is why you are building the wall. According to these reports, you are to become their king, |
7[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 7and you have even appointed prophets in Jerusalem to proclaim on your behalf: ‘There is a king in Judah.’ Soon these rumors will reach the ears of the king. So come, let us confer together.” |
8[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 8Then I sent him this reply: “There is nothing to these rumors you are spreading; you are inventing them in your own mind.” |
9[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 9For they were all trying to frighten us, saying, “Their hands will be weakened in the work, and it will never be finished.” But now, my God, strengthen my hands. |
10[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 10Later, I went to the house of Shemaiah son of Delaiah, the son of Mehetabel, who was confined to his house. He said: “Let us meet at the house of God inside the temple. Let us shut the temple doors because they are coming to kill you—by night they are coming to kill you!” |
11[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 11But I replied, “Should a man like me run away? Should one like me go into the temple to save his own life? I will not go!” |
12[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 12I realized that God had not sent him, but that he had uttered this prophecy against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him. |
13[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 13He had been hired to intimidate me so that I would sin by doing as he suggested, so they could give me a bad name in order to discredit me. |
14[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 14O my God, remember Tobiah and Sanballat for what they have done, and also Noadiah the prophetess and the other prophets who tried to intimidate me. |
15[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 15So the wall was completed in fifty-two days, on the twenty-fifth of Elul. |
16[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 16When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and disheartened, for they realized that this task had been accomplished by our God. |
17[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 17Also in those days, the nobles of Judah sent many letters to Tobiah, and Tobiah’s letters came back to them. |
18[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 18For many in Judah were bound by oath to him, since he was a son-in-law of Shecaniah son of Arah, and his son Jehohanan had married the daughter of Meshullam son of Berechiah. |
19[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 19Moreover, these nobles kept reporting to me Tobiah’s good deeds, and they relayed my words to him. And Tobiah sent letters to intimidate me. |
|
![Nehemiah 5](/left.png) ![Nehemiah 7](/right.png) ![Top of Page](/botleft.png) ![Top of Page](/botright.png) |