Nehemiah 2

¹Many years later, during the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, Ezra son of Seraiah, the son of Azariah, the son of Hilkiah,

¹¹O Lord, may Your ear be attentive to my prayer and to the prayers of Your servants who delight to revere Your name. Give Your servant success this day, I pray, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.” (At that time I was the cupbearer to the king.)

¹These are the words of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah: In the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, while I was in the citadel of Susa,

⁷So in the seventh year of King Artaxerxes, he went up to Jerusalem with some of the Israelites, including priests, Levites, singers, gatekeepers, and temple servants.

⁷In the twelfth year of King Xerxes, in the first month, the month of Nisan, the Pur (that is, the lot) was cast before Haman to determine a day and month. And the lot fell on the twelfth month, the month of Adar.

¹³A joyful heart makes a cheerful countenance, but sorrow of the heart crushes the spirit.

⁷So he asked the officials of Pharaoh who were in custody with him in his master’s house, “Why are your faces so downcast today?”

³And they told me, “The remnant who survived the exile are there in the province, in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.”

³¹Bathsheba bowed facedown in homage to the king and said, “May my lord King David live forever!”

¹⁰Hearing the outcry of the king and his nobles, the queen entered the banquet hall. “O king, may you live forever!” she said. “Do not let your thoughts terrify you, or your face grow pale.

⁶May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not exalt Jerusalem as my greatest joy!

⁴Then the astrologers answered the king in Aramaic, “O king, may you live forever! Tell your servants the dream, and we will give the interpretation.”

⁶So the administrators and satraps went together to the king and said, “O King Darius, may you live forever!

⁶Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

⁶in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.

⁴When I heard these words, I sat down and wept. I mourned for days, fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

¹¹O Lord, may Your ear be attentive to my prayer and to the prayers of Your servants who delight to revere Your name. Give Your servant success this day, I pray, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.” (At that time I was the cupbearer to the king.)

⁵One night at Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream, and God said, “Ask, and I will give it to you!”

⁵¹“What do you want Me to do for you?” Jesus asked. “Rabboni,” said the blind man, “let me see again.”

²²Joab fell facedown in homage and blessed the king. “Today,” said Joab, “your servant knows that he has found favor in your eyes, my lord the king, because the king has granted his request.”

¹³“My lord,” she said, “may I continue to find favor in your eyes, for you have comforted and spoken kindly to your maidservant, though I am not like one of your servant girls.”

⁵“If it pleases the king,” she said, “and if I have found favor in his sight, and the matter seems proper to the king, and I am pleasing in his sight, may an order be written to revoke the letters that the scheming Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, wrote to destroy the Jews in all the king’s provinces.

¹⁷Now, therefore, if it pleases the king, let a search be made of the royal archives in Babylon to see if King Cyrus did indeed issue a decree to rebuild the house of God in Jerusalem. Then let the king send us his decision in this matter.

⁸If I have found favor in the sight of the king, and if it pleases the king to grant my petition and fulfill my request, may the king and Haman come tomorrow to the banquet I will prepare for them. Then I will answer the king’s question.”

⁴Then you will find favor and high regard in the sight of God and man.

⁶While all this was happening, I was not in Jerusalem, because I had returned to Artaxerxes king of Babylon in the thirty-second year of his reign. Some time later I obtained leave from the king

¹⁴Furthermore, from the day King Artaxerxes appointed me to be their governor in the land of Judah, from his twentieth year until his thirty-second year (twelve years total), neither I nor my brothers ate the food allotted to the governor.

²⁴Even before they call, I will answer, and while they are still speaking, I will hear.

¹²Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins; you will restore the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of the Breach, Restorer of the Streets of Dwelling.

⁴“What is your request?” replied the king. So I prayed to the God of heaven

¹¹O Lord, may Your ear be attentive to my prayer and to the prayers of Your servants who delight to revere Your name. Give Your servant success this day, I pray, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.” (At that time I was the cupbearer to the king.)

²¹I, King Artaxerxes, decree to all the treasurers west of the Euphrates: Whatever Ezra the priest, the scribe of the Law of the God of heaven, may require of you, it must be provided promptly,

⁹Then I went to the governors west of the Euphrates and gave them the king’s letters. The king had also sent army officers and cavalry with me.

³⁶They also delivered the king’s edicts to the royal satraps and governors of the region west of the Euphrates, who proceeded to assist the people and the house of God.

⁶Therefore Darius decreed: To Tattenai governor of the region west of the Euphrates, Shethar-bozenai, and your associates and officials in the region: You must stay away from that place!

²²For I was ashamed to ask the king for an escort of soldiers and horsemen to protect us from our enemies on the road, since we had told him, “The hand of our God is gracious to all who seek Him, but His great anger is against all who forsake Him.”

⁶this Ezra came up from Babylon. He was a scribe skilled in the Law of Moses, which the Lord, the God of Israel, had given. The king had granted Ezra all his requests, for the hand of the Lord his God was upon him.

¹⁴When you see, you will rejoice, and you will flourish like grass; then the hand of the Lord will be revealed to His servants, but His wrath will be shown to His enemies.

²Then I put my brother Hanani in charge of Jerusalem, along with Hananiah the commander of the fortress, because he was a faithful man who feared God more than most.

⁹Now God had granted Daniel favor and compassion from the chief official,

¹⁷Then I said to them, “You see the trouble we are in. Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned down. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, so that we will no longer be a disgrace.”

¹⁸I also told them about the gracious hand of my God upon me, and what the king had said to me. “Let us start rebuilding,” they replied, and they set their hands to this good work.

⁵But the eye of their God was on the elders of the Jews, so that they were not stopped until a report was sent to Darius and written instructions about this matter were returned.

²²For I was ashamed to ask the king for an escort of soldiers and horsemen to protect us from our enemies on the road, since we had told him, “The hand of our God is gracious to all who seek Him, but His great anger is against all who forsake Him.”

¹⁹But when Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official, and Geshem the Arab heard about this, they mocked us and ridiculed us, saying, “What is this you are doing? Are you rebelling against the king?”

⁷When Sanballat and Tobiah, together with the Arabs, Ammonites, and Ashdodites, heard that the repair to the walls of Jerusalem was progressing and that the gaps were being closed, they were furious,

⁴Now before this, Eliashib the priest, a relative of Tobiah, had been put in charge of the storerooms of the house of our God

²⁶And you can see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in nearly the whole province of Asia, this Paul has persuaded a great number of people to turn away. He says that man-made gods are no gods at all.

²⁷There is danger not only that our business will fall into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be discredited and her majesty deposed—she who is worshiped by all the province of Asia and the whole world.”

⁴Wrath is cruel and anger is like a flood, but who can withstand jealousy?

⁶For this is what the Lord God says: ‘Because you clapped your hands and stomped your feet and rejoiced over the land of Israel with a heart full of contempt,

⁷therefore I will indeed stretch out My hand against you and give you as plunder to the nations. I will cut you off from the peoples and exterminate you from the countries. I will destroy you, and you will know that I am the Lord.’

³²So we arrived at Jerusalem and rested there for three days.

¹⁷For God has put it into their hearts to carry out His purpose by uniting to give their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled.

²⁷Blessed be the Lord, the God of our fathers, who has put into the heart of the king to so honor the house of the Lord in Jerusalem,

³³“But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put My law in their minds and inscribe it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be My people.

¹⁶But thanks be to God, who put into the heart of Titus the same devotion I have for you.

⁴⁰I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never turn away from doing good to them, and I will put My fear in their hearts, so that they will never turn away from Me.

²⁷So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the Lord had told him. But because he was too afraid of his father’s household and the men of the city, he did it by night rather than in the daytime.

³And they told me, “The remnant who survived the exile are there in the province, in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.”

⁹Uzziah built towers in Jerusalem at the Corner Gate, the Valley Gate, and the angle in the wall, and he fortified them.

¹⁷Then I said to them, “You see the trouble we are in. Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned down. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, so that we will no longer be a disgrace.”

¹³The Valley Gate was repaired by Hanun and the residents of Zanoah. They rebuilt it, installed its doors, bolts, and bars, and repaired a thousand cubits of the wall as far as the Dung Gate.

¹⁴The Dung Gate was repaired by Malchijah son of Rechab, ruler of the district of Beth-haccherem. He rebuilt it and installed its doors, bolts, and bars.

³and replied to the king, “May the king live forever! Why should I not be sad when the city where my fathers are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?”

¹⁵so I went up the valley by night and inspected the wall. Then I headed back and reentered through the Valley Gate.

¹⁵The Fountain Gate was repaired by Shallun son of Col-hozeh, ruler of the district of Mizpah. He rebuilt it, roofed it, and installed its doors, bolts, and bars. He also repaired the wall of the Pool of Shelah near the king’s garden, as far as the stairs that descend from the City of David.

²⁰As for the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, along with all his might and how he constructed the pool and the tunnel to bring water into the city, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

³⁰It was Hezekiah who blocked the upper outlet of the Spring of Gihon and channeled it down to the west side of the City of David. And Hezekiah prospered in all that he did.

¹⁷Nevertheless, the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rabsaris, and the Rabshakeh, along with a great army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They advanced up to Jerusalem and stationed themselves by the aqueduct of the upper pool, on the road to the Launderer’s Field.

²³Everyone in the countryside was weeping loudly as all the people passed by. And as the king crossed the Kidron Valley, all the people also passed toward the way of the wilderness.

³⁸“The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when this city will be rebuilt for Me, from the tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate.

³⁹The measuring line will once again stretch out straight to the hill of Gareb and then turn toward Goah.

¹After Jesus had spoken these words, He went out with His disciples across the Kidron Valley, where they entered a garden.

¹⁴I will make you a ruin and a disgrace among the nations around you, in the sight of all who pass by.

³Strengthen the limp hands and steady the feeble knees!

⁴Say to those with anxious hearts: “Be strong, do not fear! Behold, your God will come with vengeance. With divine retribution He will come to save you.”

⁴We have become a reproach to our neighbors, a scorn and derision to those around us.

⁵¹My eyes bring grief to my soul because of all the daughters of my city.

³And they told me, “The remnant who survived the exile are there in the province, in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.”

⁴⁵You have made us scum and refuse among the nations.

⁴⁶All our enemies open their mouths against us.

¹³For it is God who works in you to will and to act on behalf of His good purpose.

¹³Be strong and let us fight bravely for our people and for the cities of our God. May the Lord do what is good in His sight.”

⁵Then Hezekiah worked resolutely to rebuild all the broken sections of the wall and to raise up towers on it. He also built an outer wall and reinforced the supporting terraces of the City of David, and he produced an abundance of weapons and shields.

¹⁰Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.

¹³Haggai, the messenger of the Lord, delivered the message of the Lord to the people: “I am with you,” declares the Lord.

¹⁴So the Lord stirred the spirit of Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, as well as the spirit of all the remnant of the people. And they came and began the work on the house of the Lord of Hosts, their God,

⁷Now then, be strong and courageous, for though Saul your lord is dead, the house of Judah has anointed me as their king.”

⁶that read: “It is reported among the nations—and Geshem agrees—that you and the Jews are plotting to revolt, and this is why you are building the wall. According to these reports, you are to become their king,

¹When Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab, and the rest of our enemies heard that I had rebuilt the wall and not a gap was left—though to that time I had not yet installed the doors in the gates—

²Sanballat and Geshem sent me this message: “Come, let us meet together in one of the villages on the plain of Ono.” But they were planning to harm me.

¹³You have made us a reproach to our neighbors, a mockery and derision to those around us.

¹⁴You have made us a byword among the nations, a laughingstock among the peoples.

⁴⁰And they laughed at Him. After He had put them all outside, He took the child’s father and mother and His own companions, and went in to see the child.

⁶You make us contend with our neighbors; our enemies mock us.

¹“But now they mock me, men younger than I am, whose fathers I would have refused to put with my sheep dogs.

³But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the other heads of the families of Israel replied, “You have no part with us in building a house for our God, since we alone must build it for the Lord, the God of Israel, as Cyrus king of Persia has commanded us.”

²¹You have no part or share in our ministry, because your heart is not right before God.

⁴“What is your request?” replied the king. So I prayed to the God of heaven

⁵I will give them, in My house and within My walls, a memorial and a name better than that of sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off.

³¹and said, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard, and your gifts to the poor have been remembered before God.

¹⁸It is good to grasp the one and not let the other slip from your hand. For he who fears God will follow both warnings.