1 Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab, and the rest of our enemies heard that I had rebuilt the wall and that not a gap remained in it, though I had not yet hung the doors in the gates.
2 Then Sanballat and Geshem sent me this message: "Come, let us meet together in one of the villages on the plain of Ono." But they were plotting to harm me.
3 So I sent messengers to them with this reply: "I am carrying on a great work and cannot come down. Why should the work come to a standstill while I leave it to go down to you?"
4 Four times they sent me the same message, and each time I gave them the same answer.
5 The fifth time, Sanballat sent his servant to me with the same message, holding an unsealed letter
6 in which was written: "It is reported among the nations, and Gashmu confirms it, that you and the Jews are planning a revolt; that is why you are rebuilding the wall. According to these reports, you are about to become their king.
7 You have even appointed prophets to announce about you in Jerusalem, 'There is a king in Judah!' Such reports will surely get back to the king. So come, let us talk this over together."
8 I sent him this reply: "Nothing like what you describe has happened. You are making it all up out of your own head."
9 They were all trying to frighten us, thinking, "Their hands will grow too weak for the work, and it will never be finished." But now, God, strengthen my hands.
10 One day I went to the house of Shemaiah son of Delaiah, son of Mehetabel, who was confined at home. He said, "Let us meet in the house of God, inside the temple, and let us close the temple doors, because men are coming to kill you; at night they are coming to kill you."
11 But I said, "Should a man like me run away? And could someone like me go into the temple and save his life? I will not go!"
12 I realized that God had not sent him; he had uttered this prophecy against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had paid him.
13 He had been paid to make me afraid, so that I would act this way and commit a sin, and they would have grounds for a bad report to discredit me.
14 Remember Tobiah and Sanballat, my God, for what they have done, and also the prophetess Noadiah and the other prophets who kept trying to frighten me.
15 The wall was completed on the twenty-fifth day of Elul, in fifty-two days.
16 When all our enemies heard about it, and all the surrounding nations saw it, they lost all their self-confidence, for they realized that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God.
17 Also during that time the nobles of Judah were sending many letters to Tobiah, and letters from Tobiah were coming to them.
18 For many in Judah were bound to him by oath, since he was son-in-law to Shecaniah son of Arah, and his son Jehohanan had married the daughter of Meshullam son of Berechiah.
19 They kept telling me about his good deeds and then reporting to him what I said. And Tobiah kept sending letters to intimidate me.