7. and have even appointed prophets to make this proclamation about you in Jerusalem: “There is a king in Judah!” Now this report will get back to the king; so come, let us meet together.’
8. I sent him this reply: ‘Nothing like what you are saying is happening; you are just making it up out of your head.’
9. They were all trying to frighten us, thinking, ‘Their hands will get too weak for the work, and it will not be completed.’But I prayed, ‘Now strengthen my hands.’
10. One day I went to the house of Shemaiah son of Delaiah, the son of Mehetabel, who was shut in at his home. He said, ‘Let us meet in the house of God, inside the temple, and let us close the temple doors, because men are coming to kill you – by night they are coming to kill you.’
11. But I said, ‘Should a man like me run away? Or should someone like me go into the temple to save his life? I will not go!’
12. I realised that God had not sent him, but that he had prophesied against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him.
13. He had been hired to intimidate me so that I would commit a sin by doing this, and then they would give me a bad name to discredit me.