4. I prayed, “Listen to them mocking us, O God! Let their ridicule fall on their own heads. Let them be robbed of everything they have, and let them be taken as prisoners to a foreign land.
5. Don't forgive the evil they do and don't forget their sins, for they have insulted us who are building.”
6. So we went on rebuilding the wall, and soon it was half its full height, because the people were eager to work.
7. Sanballat, Tobiah, and the people of Arabia, Ammon, and Ashdod heard that we were making progress in rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem and that the gaps in the wall were being closed, and they were very angry.
8. So they all plotted together to come and attack Jerusalem and create confusion,
9. but we prayed to our God and kept men on guard against them day and night.
10. The people of Judah had a song they sang:“We grow weak carrying burdens;There's so much rubble to take away.How can we build the wall today?”