They are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your mighty strength and by your powerful hand.

The sons of Hassenaah rebuilt the Fish Gate. They laid its beams and positioned its doors, its bolts, and its bars.

“But they – our ancestors ¹  – behaved presumptuously; they rebelled ²  and did not obey your commandments.

and from Beth Gilgal and from the fields of Geba and Azmaveth, for the singers had built settlements for themselves around Jerusalem.

Also in those days I saw the men of Judah who had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab.

Please remember them, O my God, because they have defiled the priesthood, the covenant of the priesthood, ¹  and the Levites.

and in the presence of his colleagues ¹  and the army of Samaria ²  he said, “What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they be left to themselves? ³  Will they again offer sacrifice? Will they finish this in a day? Can they bring these burnt stones to life again from piles of dust?”

When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official ¹  heard all this, they were very displeased that someone had come to seek benefit for the Israelites.

Joiada son of Paseah and Meshullam son of Besodeiah worked on the Jeshanah Gate. ¹  They laid its beams and positioned its doors, its bolts, and its bars.

Then Tobiah the Ammonite, who was close by, said, “If even a fox were to climb up on what they are building, it would break down their wall of stones!”

They replied, “We will return these things, ¹  and we will no longer demand anything from them. We will do just as you say.” Then I called the priests and made the wealthy and the officials ²  swear to do what had been promised. ³ 

Sanballat and Geshem sent word to me saying, “Come on! Let’s set up a time to meet together at Kephirim ¹  in the plain of Ono.” Now they intended to do me harm.

He had been hired to scare me so that I would do this and thereby sin. They would thus bring reproach on me and I ¹  would be discredited. ² 

In those days the aristocrats of Judah repeatedly sent letters to Tobiah, and responses from Tobiah were repeatedly coming to them.

These are the ones who came up from Tel Melah, Tel Harsha, Kerub, Addon, and Immer (although they were unable to certify ¹  their family connection ²  or their ancestry, ³  as to whether they were really from Israel):

You guided them with a pillar of cloud by day and with a pillar of fire by night to illumine for them the path they were to travel.

So I entered a complaint with them. I called down a curse on them, and I struck some of the men and pulled out their hair. I had them swear by God saying, “You will not marry off ¹  your daughters to their sons, and you will not take any of their daughters as wives for your sons or for yourselves!

Then Eliashib the high priest and his priestly colleagues ¹  arose and built the Sheep Gate. They dedicated ²  it and erected its doors, working as far as the Tower of the Hundred ³  and ⁴  the Tower of Hananel.

Hanun and the residents of Zanoah worked on the Valley Gate. They rebuilt it and positioned its doors, its bolts, and its bars, in addition to working on fifteen hundred feet ¹  of the wall as far as the Dung Gate.

But the former governors who preceded me had burdened the people and had taken food and wine from them, in addition to ¹  forty shekels of silver. Their associates were also domineering over the people. But I did not behave in this way, due to my fear of God.