17. Then I said to them, “You see the evil which we are in, how Yerushalayim lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire. Come and let us build the wall of Yerushalayim, and let us no longer be a reproach.”
18. And I informed them of the hand of my Elohim which had been good upon me, and also of the sovereign’s words he had spoken to me. And they said, “Let us rise up and we shall build.” So they made their hands strong for good.
19. But when Sanballat the Ḥoronite heard, and Toḇiyah the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Araḇ, they mocked us and despised us, and said, “What is this you are doing? Are you rebelling against the sovereign?”
20. And I answered them, and said to them, “The Elohim of the heavens, He shall bless us and let us, His servants, rise and build, but you have no portion or right or remembrance in Yerushalayim.”