¹¹ And when I came to Jerusalem, and had been there three days, ¹² I gat me up in the night season, and a few men with me: for I told no man what God had given me in my heart to do at Jerusalem. And there was not one beast with me, save it that I rode upon. ¹³ And I rode by night unto the valley port before the Dragon well, and to the Dung port, and considered the walls of Jerusalem that were broken down, and the ports thereof consumed with the fire. ¹⁴ And I went over unto the well port, and to the king's conduit; and there was no room for my beast, that it could go under me. ¹⁵ Then went I on in the night by the brook side, and considered the wall, and turned back and came home again to the valley port. ¹⁶ And the rulers knew not whither I went or what I did: for hitherto had I not told the Jews and the priests, the councilors and the rulers, and the others that laboured in the work. ¹⁷ And I said unto them, "Ye see the misery that we are in, how Jerusalem lieth waste, and how the gates thereof are burnt with fire. Come, let us build up the walls of Jerusalem, that we be no more a rebuke." ¹⁸ And I told them of the good hand of my God which was upon me; and the king's words that he had spoken unto me. And they said, "Then let us get up and build," and strengthened their hands to good.

¹⁹ But when Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant of the Ammonites, and Geshem the Arabian heard it, they laughed us to scorn, and despised us, and said, "What is this that ye do? Will ye fall away again from the king?"

²⁰ Then answered I them, and said, "The God of heaven, he it is that causeth us to prosper: and we be his servants. Let us get up and build. As for you: ye have no portion, nor right, nor remembrance in Jerusalem."