Rebuilding Jerusalem

Chapter 2

¹In the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, wine was set before him; I took the wine and gave it to the king—I had never been out of sorts in his presence. ²The king said to me, “How is it that you look bad, though you are not ill? It must be bad thoughts.” I was very frightened, ³but I answered the king, “May the king live forever! How should I not look bad when the city of the graveyard of my ancestors lies in ruins, and its gates have been consumed by fire?” ⁴The king said to me, “What is your request?” With a prayer to the God of Heaven, ⁵I answered the king, “If it please the king, and if your servant has found favor with you, send me to Judah, to the city of my ancestors’ graves, to rebuild it.” ⁶With the consort seated at his side, the king said to me, “How long will you be gone and when will you return?” So it was agreeable to the king to send me, and I gave him a date. ⁷Then I said to the king, “If it please the king, let me have letters to the governors of the province of Beyond the River, directing them to grant me passage until I reach Judah; ⁸likewise, a letter to Asaph, the keeper of the King’s Park, directing him to give me timber for roofing the gatehouses of the temple fortress and the city walls and for the house I shall occupy.” The king gave me these, thanks to my God’s benevolent care for me. ⁹When I came to the governors of the province of Beyond the River I gave them the king’s letters. The king also sent army officers and cavalry with me.

¹⁰When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite servant heard, it displeased them greatly that someone had come, intent on improving the condition of the Israelites.

¹¹I arrived in Jerusalem. After I was there three days ¹²I got up at night, I and a few men with me, and telling no one what my God had put into my mind to do for Jerusalem, and taking no other beast than the one on which I was riding, ¹³I went out by the Valley Gate, at night, toward the Jackals’ Spring and the Dung Gate; and I surveyed the walls of Jerusalem that were breached, and its gates, consumed by fire. ¹⁴I proceeded to the Fountain Gate and to the King’s Pool, where there was no room for the beast under me to continue. ¹⁵So I went up the wadi by night, surveying the wall, and, entering again by the Valley Gate, I returned. ¹⁶The prefects knew nothing of where I had gone or what I had done, since I had not yet divulged it to the Jews—the priests, the nobles, the prefects, or the rest of the officials.

¹⁷Then I said to them, “You see the bad state we are in—Jerusalem lying in ruins and its gates destroyed by fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem and suffer no more disgrace.” ¹⁸I told them of my God’s benevolent care for me, also of the things that the king had said to me, and they said, “Let us start building!” They were encouraged by [His] benevolence.

¹⁹When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite servant and Geshem the Arab heard, they mocked us and held us in contempt and said, “What is this that you are doing? Are you rebelling against the king?” ²⁰I said to them in reply, “The God of Heaven will grant us success, and we, His servants, will start building. But you have no share or claim or stake in Jerusalem!”

Chapter 3

¹Then Eliashib the high priest and his fellow priests set to and rebuilt the Sheep Gate; they consecrated it and set up its doors, consecrating it as far as the Hundred’s Tower, as far as the Tower of Hananel. ²Next to him, the men of Jericho built. Next to them, Zaccur son of Imri. ³The sons of Hassenaah rebuilt the Fish Gate; they roofed it and set up its doors, locks, and bars. ⁴Next to them, Meremoth son of Uriah son of Hakkoz repaired; and next to him, Meshullam son of Berechiah son of Meshezabel. Next to him, Zadok son of Baana repaired. ⁵Next to him, the Tekoites repaired, though their nobles would not take upon their shoulders the work of their lord. [ . . . ]

³³When Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, it angered him, and he was extremely vexed. He mocked the Jews, ³⁴saying in the presence of his brothers and the Samarian force, “What are the miserable Jews doing? Will they restore, offer sacrifice, and finish one day? Can they revive those stones out of the dust heaps, burned as they are?” ³⁵Tobiah the Ammonite, alongside him, said, “That stone wall they are building—if a fox climbed it he would breach it!”

³⁶Hear, our God, how we have become a mockery, and return their taunts upon their heads! Let them be taken as spoil to a land of captivity! ³⁷Do not cover up their iniquity or let their sin be blotted out before You, for they hurled provocations at the builders.

³⁸We rebuilt the wall till it was continuous all around to half its height; for the people’s heart was in the work.

Chapter 4

¹When Sanballat and Tobiah, and the Arabs, the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites heard that healing had come to the walls of Jerusalem, that the breached parts had begun to be filled, it angered them very much, ²and they all conspired together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to throw it into confusion. ³Because of them we prayed to our God, and set up a watch over them^a day and night.

⁵And our foes were saying, “Before they know or see it, we shall be in among them and kill them, and put a stop to the work.” ⁶When the Jews living near them^b would arrive, they would tell us time and again “. . . from all the places where . . . you shall come back to us. . . .” ⁷I stationed, on the lower levels of the place, behind the walls, on the bare rock—I stationed the people by families with their swords, their lances, and their bows. ⁸Then I decided to exhort the nobles, the prefects, and the rest of the people, “Do not be afraid of them! Think of the great and awesome Lord, and fight for your brothers, your sons and daughters, your wives and homes!” [ . . . ]

Chapter 5

¹There was a great outcry by the common folk and their wives against their brother Jews. ²Some said, “Our sons and daughters are numerous; we must get grain to eat in order that we may live!” ³Others said, “We must pawn our fields, our vineyards, and our homes to get grain to stave off hunger.” ⁴Yet others said, “We have borrowed money against our fields and vineyards to pay the king’s tax. ⁵Now we are as good as our brothers, and our children as good as theirs; yet here we are subjecting our sons and daughters to slavery—some of our daughters are already subjected—and we are powerless, while our fields and vineyards belong to others.”

⁶It angered me very much to hear their outcry and these complaints. ⁷After pondering the matter carefully, I censured the nobles and the prefects, saying, “Are you pressing claims on loans made to your brothers?” Then I raised a large crowd against them ⁸and said to them, “We have done our best to buy back our Jewish brothers who were sold to the nations; will you now sell your brothers so that they must be sold [back] to us?” They kept silent, for they found nothing to answer. ⁹So I continued, “What you are doing is not right. You ought to act in a God-fearing way so as not to give our enemies, the nations, room to reproach us. ¹⁰I, my brothers, and my servants also have claims of money and grain against them; let us now abandon those claims! ¹¹Give back at once their fields, their vineyards, their olive trees, and their homes, and [abandon] the claims for the hundred pieces of silver, the grain, the wine, and the oil that you have been pressing against them!” ¹²They replied, “We shall give them back, and not demand anything of them; we shall do just as you say.” Summoning the priests, I put them under oath to keep this promise. ¹³I also shook out the bosom of my garment and said, “So may God shake free of his household and property any man who fails to keep this promise; may he be thus shaken out and stripped.” All the assembled answered, “Amen,” and praised the Lord.

The people kept this promise. [ . . . ]

¹⁹O my God, remember to my credit all that I have done for this people!

Chapter 6

¹When word reached Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab, and the rest of our enemies that I had rebuilt the wall and not a breach remained in it—though at that time I had not yet set up doors in the gateways— ²Sanballat and Geshem sent a message to me, saying, “Come, let us get together in Kephirim in the Ono valley”; they planned to do me harm. ³I sent them messengers, saying, “I am engaged in a great work and cannot come down, for the work will stop if I leave it in order to come down to you.” ⁴They sent me the same message four times, and I gave them the same answer. ⁵Sanballat sent me the same message a fifth time by his servant, who had an open letter with him. [ . . . ]

¹⁴“O my God, remember against Tobiah and Sanballat these deeds of theirs, and against Noadiah the prophetess, and against the other prophets that they wished to intimidate me!”

¹⁵The wall was finished on the twenty-fifth of Elul, after fifty-two days. ¹⁶When all our enemies heard it, all the nations round about us were intimidated, and fell very low in their own estimation; they realized that this work had been accomplished by the help of our God.