Nehemiah 4:1-9 ▼

1 And it comes to pass, when Sanballat has heard that we are building the wall, that it is displeasing to him, and he is very angry and mocks at the Jews,

2 and says before his brothers and the force of Samaria, indeed, he says, “What [are] the weak Jews doing? Are they left to themselves? Do they sacrifice? Do they complete in a day? Do they revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish—and they are burned?”

3 And Tobiah the Ammonite [is] by him and says, “Also, that which they are building—if a fox goes up, then it has broken down their stone wall.”

4 Hear, O our God, for we have been despised; and return their reproach on their own head, and give them for a spoil in a land of captivity;

5 and do not cover over their iniquity, and do not let their sin be blotted out from before You, for they have provoked [You] to anger in front of those building.

6 And we build the wall, and all the wall is joined—to its half, and the people have a heart to work.

7 And it comes to pass, when Sanballat has heard, and Tobiah, and the Arabians, and the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites, that lengthening has gone up to the walls of Jerusalem, that the breeches have begun to be stopped, then it is very displeasing to them,

8 and they conspire, all of them together, to come to fight against Jerusalem, and to do to it injury.

9 And we pray to our God, and appoint a watch against them, by day and by night, because of them.