1And it happened in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king, when wine was before him, that I took up the wine, and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad before in his presence. 2And the king said to me, Why is your countenance sad, seeing you are not sick? this is nothing else but sorrow of heart. Then I was very greatly afraid. 3And I said to the king, Let the king live forever: why should my countenance not be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers’ tombs, lies waste, and its gates are consumed with fire? 4Then the king said to me, For what do you make request? So I prayed to the God of heaven. 5And I said to the king, If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, that you would send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers’ tombs, that I may build it. 6And the king said to me (the queen also sitting by him), For how long shall your journey be? and when will you return? So it pleased the king to send me; and I set him a time. 7Moreover I said to the king, If it pleases the king, let letters be given me to the governors beyond the River, that they may let me pass through till I come to Judah; 8and a letter to Asaph the keeper of the king’s forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the castle which belongs to the house, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall enter into. And the king granted me, according to the good hand of my God upon me. 9Then I came to the governors beyond the River, and gave them the king’s letters. Now the king had sent with me captains of the army and horsemen. 10And when Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, heard of it, it grieved them exceedingly, that a man had come to seek the welfare of the children of Israel. 11So I came to Jerusalem, and was there three days. 12And I arose in the night, I and some few men with me; nor did I tell any man what my God put into my heart to do for Jerusalem; neither was there any beast with me, except the beast that I rode upon. 13And I went out by night by the valley gate, even toward the jackal’s well, and to the dung gate, and viewed the walls of Jerusalem, which were broken down, and its gates were consumed with fire. 14Then I went on to the fountain gate and to the king’s pool: but there was no place for the beast that was under me to pass. 15Then I went up in the night by the brook, and viewed the wall; and I turned back, and entered by the valley gate, and so returned. 16And the rulers did not know where I went, or what I did; neither had I as yet told it to the Jews, nor to the priests, nor to the nobles, nor to the rulers, nor to the rest that did the work. 17Then I said to them, You see the bad situation that we are in, how Jerusalem lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire: come, and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer be a reproach. 18And I told them of the hand of my God which was good upon me, as also of the king’s words that he had spoken to me. And they said, Let us rise up and build. So they strengthened their hands for the good work. 19But when Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian, heard it, they mocked us, and despised us, and said, What is this thing that you do? will you rebel against the king? 20Then I answered them, and said to them, The God of heaven, he will prosper us; therefore we his servants will arise and build: but you have no portion, nor right, nor memorial, in Jerusalem.