| [an error occurred while processing this directive] | Christian Standard 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 that no gap was left in it--though at that time I had not installed the doors in the city gates-- |
| 2[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 2Sanballat and Geshem sent me a message: "Come, let's meet together in the villages of the Ono Valley." They were planning to harm me. |
| 3[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 3So I sent messengers to them, saying, "I am doing important work and cannot come down. Why should the work cease while I leave it and go down to you?" |
| 4[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 4Four times they sent me the same proposal, and I gave them the same reply. |
| 5[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 5Sanballat sent me this same message a fifth time by his aide, who had an open letter in his hand. |
| 6[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 6In it was written: It is reported among the nations--and Geshem agrees--that you and the Jews plan to rebel. This is the reason you are building the wall. According to these reports, you are to become their king |
| 7[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 7and have even set up the prophets in Jerusalem to proclaim on your behalf: "There is a king in Judah." These rumors will be heard by the king. So come, let's confer together. |
| 8[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 8Then I replied to him, "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 intimidate us, saying, "They will drop their hands from the work, and it will never be finished." But now, my God, strengthen my hands. |
| 10[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 10I went to the house of Shemaiah son of Delaiah, son of Mehetabel, who was restricted to his house. He said: Let's meet at the house of God, inside the temple. Let's shut the temple doors because they're coming to kill you. They're coming to kill you tonight! |
| 11[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 11But I said, "Should a man like me run away? How can someone like me enter the temple and live? I will not go." |
| 12[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 12I realized that God had not sent him, because of the prophecy he spoke against me. Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him. |
| 13[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 13He was hired, so that I would be intimidated, do as he suggested, sin, and get a bad reputation, in order that they could discredit me. |
| 14[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 14My God, remember Tobiah and Sanballat for what they have done, and also the prophetess Noadiah and the other prophets who wanted to intimidate me. |
| 15[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 15The wall was completed in fifty-two days, on the twenty-fifth day of the month Elul. |
| 16[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 16When all our enemies heard this, all the surrounding nations were intimidated and lost their confidence, for they realized that this task had been accomplished by our God. |
| 17[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 17During those days, the nobles of Judah sent many letters to Tobiah, and Tobiah's letters came 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] | 19These nobles kept mentioning Tobiah's good deeds to me, and they reported my words to him. And Tobiah sent letters to intimidate me. |
| [an error occurred while processing this directive] | The Christian Standard Bible. Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. |
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