 1 In the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, wine was before him. I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad in his presence before. 2 The king said to me, Why is your face sad since you are not sick? This is nothing but sorrow of heart. Then I was very afraid. 3 I said to the king, Let the king live forever. Why should my face not be sad when the city, the place of my fathers' tombs, lies waste and its gates are burned with fire? 4 The king said to me, For what do you ask? So I prayed to the God of Heaven, 5 and I said to the king, If it please the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, I pray that you would send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' tombs, so that I may build it. 6 The king said to me the queen also sitting by him, For how long will your journey be? And when will you return? So it pleased the king to send me, and I set him a time. 7 I said to the king, If it please the king, let letters be given to the governors Beyond the River so that they may let me pass+ through until I come to Judah. 8 and a letter to Asaph the keeper of the kings forest, so that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the palace that belong to the house, and for the wall of the city, and for the house into which I will enter. And the king granted me what I asked, according to the good hand of my God upon me. 9 I came to the governors of the province Beyond the River and gave them the king's letters. And the king had sent captains of the army and horsemen with me. 10 When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, heard this and it grieved them exceedingly that a man had come to seek the welfare of the children of Israel. 11 I came to Jerusalem and was there three days. 12 I arose in the night, I and some few men with me. And I did not tell to a man what my God had put in my heart to do at Jerusalem. And there was no animal with me, except the animal that I rode upon. 13 I went out by night by the Valley Gate, even before the Jackal Fountain, and to the Dung Gate, and looked at the walls of Jerusalem that were broken down, and its gates that were burned with fire. 14 I went on to the Fountain Gate and to the king's pool. But there was no place for the animal that was under me to pass. 15 I went in the night by the brook and looked at the wall and turned back and entered by the Valley Gate and returned. 16 The rulers did not know where I had gone, nor what I was doing. Nor had I told the Jews as yet, nor to the priests, nor to the nobles, nor to the rulers, nor to the rest that did the work. 17 I said to them, you see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem is wasted, and the gates of it are burned with fire. Come and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem so that we may no longer be a reproach. 18 I told them of the hand of my God that was good on me and also the king's words that he had spoken to me. They said, Let us rise up to build. So they made their hands strong for good. 19 But when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian heard, they laughed at us scornfully and despised us. They said, What is this that you do? Will you rebel against the king? 20 I answered them and said to them, The God of Heaven, He will bless us, and we, His servants, will arise and build. But you have no portion or right or memorial in Jerusalem.
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