Nehemiah 2:1-10 - Nehemiah Sent
1 Now I was cupbearer to the king. And it came to pass in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king, when wine was before him, that I took up the wine, and gave it to the king. Now I had not [formerly] been sad in 2 And the king said to me, Why is thy countenance sad, seeing thou are not sick? This is nothing else but sorrow of heart. Then I was very much afraid. 3 And I said to the king, Let the king live forever. Why should not my countenance be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' sepulchers, lays waste, and the gates of it are consumed with fire?
4 Then the king said to me, For what do thou make request? So I prayed to the God of heaven. 5 And I said to the king, If it please the king, and if thy servant have found favor in thy sight, that thou would send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' sepulchers, that I may build it.
6 And the king said to me (the queen also sitting by him), For how long shall thy journey be? And when will thou return? So it pleased the king to send me, and I set him a time.
7 Moreover I said to the king, If it please the king, let letters be given to me to the governors beyond the River, that they may let me pass through till I come to Judah, 8 and a letter to Asaph the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the castle which appertains to the house, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall enter into. And
9 Then I came to the governors beyond the River, and gave them the king's letters. Now the king had sent with me captains of the army and horsemen. 10 And when Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, heard of it, it grieved them exceedingly that there came a man to seek the welfare of the sons of Israel.