Nehemiah 6

1When word reached Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab, and the rest of our enemies that I had rebuilt the wall and that no gap was left in it—though up to that time I had not yet set up the doors in the gates—

2Sanballat and Geshem sent a message to me: “Come, let us meet together in the villages in the plain of Ono.” But they were planning to do me harm.

3So I sent messengers to them, saying, “I am doing a great work, and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you?”

4They sent me the same message four times, and each time I gave them the same answer.

5Then Sanballat sent his servant to me with the same message a fifth time, with an open letter in his hand.

6In it was written, “It is reported among the nations, and Geshem also says it, that you and the Jews are planning to rebel, and that this is why you are rebuilding the wall. According to these reports you are about to become their king.

7You have also set up prophets to proclaim about you in Jerusalem, ‘There is a king in Judah!’ Now the king will hear about these reports. So come now, and let us consult together.”

8I sent back to him, saying, “Nothing like what you are saying has happened. You are making it up out of your own head.”

9For they were all trying to frighten us, thinking, “Their hands will drop from the work, and it will not get done.” But now, strengthen my hands!

10One day I went to the house of Shemaiah son of Delaiah, son of Mehetabel, who was shut in at home. He said, “Let us meet at the house of God, inside the temple, and let us shut the doors of the temple, for they are coming to kill you. They are coming to kill you tonight.”

11But I said, “Should a man like me run away? And what man like me could go into the temple and live? I will not go in.”

12Then I realized that God had not sent him, but that he had spoken this prophecy against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him.

13He had been hired for this purpose: to make me afraid, so that I would act this way and sin, and they would have a reason to give me a bad name, so that they could taunt me.

14Remember Tobiah and Sanballat, my God, according to these things they did, and also Noadiah the prophetess and the rest of the prophets who were trying to frighten me.

15So the wall was finished on the twenty-fifth day of the month of Elul, in fifty-two days.

16When all our enemies heard about it, all the nations around us were afraid, and they fell greatly in their own eyes, for they knew that this work had been done with the help of our God.

17Also in those days the nobles of Judah were sending many letters to Tobiah, and letters from Tobiah were coming to them.

18For many in Judah were bound to him by oath, because he was the son-in-law of Shecaniah son of Arah, and his son Jehohanan had married the daughter of Meshullam son of Berechiah.

19They also kept speaking about his good deeds in front of me, and they kept reporting my words to him. And Tobiah sent letters to frighten me.