Nehemiah Sent to Jerusalem

1And it came to pass in the month of Nisan,† in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king, that wine was before his face, and I lifted up the wine and gave it to the king. And never had I been sad before his face. 2And the king said to me, “Why is your face sad, and you are not sick? This is nothing except but sorrow of heart.”

And I feared very much, 3and I said to the king, “May the king live forever! Why should not my face be sad when the city, the place of the tombs of my fathers, is waste, and its gates have been consumed with the fire?”

4And the king said to me, “Upon what is this you are seeking?”

And I prayed to the God of the heavens, 5and I said to the king, “If to the king it is good, and if your servant has found favor in your eyes, I ask that you send me to Judah, to the city of the tombs of my fathers, and I will rebuild it.”

6And the king said to me, and the queen was sitting beside him, “Even to when will be your journey? And when will you return?” And it was good before the face of the king, and he sent me away, and I set for him a time.

7And I said to the king, “If it is good to the king, let letters be given to me for the governors beyond the River,† that they let me pass over until that I come to Judah, 8and a letter to Asaph the keeper of the forest that is unto the king, that he give to me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel that is for the house, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I will enter into.”

And the king granted to me the good according to hand of my God upon me.

9And I went to the governors beyond the River, and I gave to them the letters of the king. And the king sent with me captains of a force, and horsemen.

10And Sanballat the Horonite heard, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and they were disturbed exceedingly deeply that a man had come to seek the good of the sons of Israel.

Nehemiah Inspects the Walls

11And I came to Jerusalem and was there three days. 12And I arose in the night, I and a few men with me, and I did not tell to a man what my God had put in my heart to do at Jerusalem, there was no beast with me for but the beast that I was riding upon.

13And I went out through the Gate of the Valley by night, and to the front of the Well of the Serpent,† and to the Gate of the Dunghill. And I was inspecting the walls of Jerusalem that had been broken down, and its gates that had been consumed with the fire.

14And I went on to the Gate of the Fountain and to the Pool of the King, and there was no place for the beast under me to pass over. 15And I went up by the valley by night, and I was inspecting the wall, and I turned back and came in through the Gate of the Valley, and I returned.

16And the prefects did not know where I had gone or what I had done. And to the Jews, and to the priests, and to the freemen, and to the prefects, and to the rest of those doing the work, even yet I had not told it. 17And I said to them, “You⁺ see the distress that we are in—that Jerusalem is waste and its gates are burned with the fire. Come and let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may not be anymore a reproach.”

18And I told them of the hand of my God that was good upon me, and also of the words of the king that he had spoken to me.

And they said, “Let us rise up and build.” And they strengthened their hands for good.

19And Sanballat the Horonite heard of it, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arab, and they laughed at us and despised us and said, “What is this thing that you⁺ are doing? Are you⁺ rebelling against the king?”

20And I returned to them word and said to them, “The God of the heavens, He will prosper us, and we His servants will arise and build. And you⁺ have no heritage or right or memorial in Jerusalem.”