The Work Ridiculed

1And it will be that when Sanballat heard that we are building the wall, and it will kindle to him, and he will be greatly angry, and he will mock against the Jews. 2And he will say before his brethren and the strength of Shomeron, and he will say, What are the feeble Jews doing? will they leave to themselves? will they sacrifice? will they finish in a day? will they give life to the stones of the heaps of dust, and they being burnt? 3And Tobiah the Ammonite near him, and he will say, Also that they are building, if a fox shall go up, and he brake their walls of stones.

4Hear, O our God; for we were despised: and turn back their reproach upon their head, and wilt thou give them for plunder in the land of captivity? 5And thou wilt not cover over their iniquity, and their sin shall not be wiped away before thee: for they provoked before the builders.

6And we shall build the wall; and all the wall will be completed even to its half: and a heart will be to the people to work.

7And it will be that when Sanballat heard, and Tobiah, and the Arabians and the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites, that healing ascended to the walls of Jerusalem, that the breaches began to be stopped, and it kindled to them greatly; 8And they will conspire all of them together to come to war against Jerusalem, and to do damage to it.

Discouragement Overcome

9And we will pray to our God, and we shall set up a watch against them day and night, from before them.

10And Judah will say, The strength of the bearer was weak, and the dust much; and we shall not be able to build upon the wall.

11And our adversaries will say, They shall not know, and they shall not see, till that we shall come to their midst and kill them, and cause the work to cease. 12And it will be that when the Jews dwelling near them came, and they will say to us ten times, From all places which ye shall turn back to us. 13And I shall set from underneath to the place from behind to the wall upon the dry places, and I shall set the people to the families with their swords, their spears and their bows. 14And I shall see, and I shall rise up and say to the nobles and to the prefects and to the rest of the people, Ye shall not be afraid from their face: remember Jehovah great and terrible; and war for yourselves, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your houses.

15And it will be that when our enemies heard that it was known to us, and God will disperse their counsel, and we shall turn back all of us to the wall, each to his work. 16And it will be from that day the half of my young men doing in the work, and half of them holding fast and the spears, the shields, and the bows, and the coats of mail; and the chiefs behind every house of Judah. 17They building upon the wall, and they bearing in the burden, they loading with one of his hands doing in the work, and one holding fast the weapon. 18And the builders, a man his sword being girded upon his loins, and building. And he striking upon the trumpet near me. 19And saying to the nobles and to the prefects and to the rest of the people, The work much and broad, and we being scattered upon the wall, far off a man from his brother. 20In the place which ye shall hear the voice of the trumpet there ye shall gather together to us; our God shall war for us.

21And we doing in the work: and half of them holding fast upon the spears from the ascending of the dawn even till the coming forth of the stars. 22Also in that time I said to the people, A man and his youth shall lodge in the midst of Jerusalem; and they were watching for us in the night, and work in the day. 23And not I and my brethren and my young men, and the men of the watch which were after me, we not putting off our garments; a man his weapon for water.