Four invitations and a trap
1When word reached Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab and the rest of our enemies that I had rebuilt the wall and that not a gap was left in it — though by then I had not yet hung the doors in the gateways — 2Sanballat and Geshem sent me this message: “Come, let us meet together in one of the villages on the plain of Ono.” They were plotting to harm me. 3So I sent messengers to them with this answer: “I am doing a great work and cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you?” 4Four times they sent me the same message, and four times I gave them the same reply. 5Then, a fifth time, Sanballat sent his attendant to me with the same message, and in his hand was an open letter. 6This is what it said: “It is being reported among the nations — and Gashmu says it too — that you and the Jews are planning a revolt, and that this is why you are building the wall. By these accounts you mean to become their king, 7and you have even installed prophets to proclaim about you in Jerusalem, ‘There is a king in Judah!’ Now all this will reach the king’s ears. So come, let us talk it over together.” 8I sent him this answer: “Nothing of what you say is happening. You are making it up out of your own head.” 9They were all trying to frighten us, thinking, “Their hands will go slack at the work, and it will never be finished.” But now, strengthen my hands. 10One day I went to the house of Shemaiah son of Delaiah, son of Mehetabel, who was confined there. He said, “Let us meet in the house of God, inside the sanctuary, and let us shut the sanctuary doors, for they are coming to kill you — tonight they are coming to kill you.” 11But I said, “Should a man like me run away? And what man like me could enter the sanctuary and live? I will not go in.” 12I saw clearly that God had not sent him; he had spoken this prophecy against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had paid him. 13He was paid to frighten me into acting that way and committing a sin, so that they could give me a bad name and hold me up to scorn. 14Remember, my God, what Tobiah and Sanballat have done, and Noadiah the prophetess too, and the rest of the prophets who kept trying to frighten me.
Fifty-two days
15The wall was finished on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days. 16When all our enemies heard of it and all the nations around us saw it, their confidence collapsed, for they knew that this work had been carried out with the help of our God. 17In those days, too, the nobles of Judah were sending many letters to Tobiah, and letters from Tobiah kept arriving for them. 18Many in Judah were bound to him by oath, since he was the son-in-law of Shecaniah son of Arah, and his son Jehohanan had married the daughter of Meshullam son of Berekiah. 19They kept praising his good deeds in my presence and reporting my words back to him. And Tobiah sent letters to intimidate me.
