5. and say to the king, `If to the king [it be] good, and if thy servant be pleasing before thee, that thou send me unto Judah, unto the city of the graves of my fathers, and I built it.'
6. And the king saith to me (and the queen is sitting near him), `How long is thy journey? and when dost thou return?' and it is good before the king, and he sendeth me away, and I set to him a time.
7. And I say to the king, `If to the king [it be] good, letters let be given to me for the governors beyond the River, that they let me pass over till that I come in unto Judah:
8. and a letter unto Asaph, keeper of the paradise that the king hath, that he give to me trees for beams [for] the gates of the palace that the house hath, and for the wall of the city, and for the house into which I enter;' and the king giveth to me, according to the good hand of my God upon me.
9. And I come in unto the governors beyond the River, and give to them the letters of the king; and the king sendeth with me heads of a force, and horsemen;
10. and Sanballat the Horonite heareth, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and it is evil to them--a great evil--that a man hath come in to seek good for the sons of Israel.
11. And I come in unto Jerusalem, and I am there three days,
12. and I rise by night, I and a few men with me, and have not declared to a man what my God is giving unto my heart to do for Jerusalem, and there is no beast with me except the beast on which I am riding.
13. And I go out through the gate of the valley by night, and unto the front of the fountain of the dragon, and unto the gate of the dunghill, and I am measuring about the walls of Jerusalem, that are broken down, and its gates consumed with fire.