So the king said to me, "Why do you appear to be depressed when you aren't sick? What can this be other than sadness of heart?" This made me very fearful.

So I prayed to the God of heaven and I replied to the king, "If it seems good to you, and if your servant has found favor with you, would you send me to Judah, to the city where my ancestral sepulchers are located, so I can rebuild it?"

So I said unto them, Ye, can see the misfortune that, we, are in, how that, Jerusalem, lieth waste, and, the gates thereof, are burned with fire: Come, and let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may remain, no longer, a reproach.

before his colleagues and the powerful men of Samaria, and said, “What are these pathetic Jews doing? Can they restore it by themselves? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they ever finish it? Can they bring these burnt stones back to life from the mounds of rubble?”

Meanwhile, the people of Judah said, "The builders are tired and there's so much rubble that we can't reconstruct the wall!"

And our enemies said, “They won’t know or see anything until we’re among them and can kill them and stop the work.”

At that time, I also said to the people, “Let everyone and his servant spend the night inside Jerusalem, so that they can stand guard by night and work by day.”

Some were saying, “We, our sons, and our daughters are numerous. Let us get grain so that we can eat and live.”

There were also those saying, "We have pledged our fields and our vineyards and our houses so that we can get grain in the famine."

I said to them, "To the extent possible we have bought back our fellow Jews who had been sold to the Gentiles. But now you yourselves want to sell your own countrymen, so that we can then buy them back!" They were utterly silent, and could find nothing to say.

I sent messengers to them, saying, "I am doing a great work, so that I can't come down. Why should the work cease, while I leave it, and come down to you?"

But I said, "Should a man like me run away? And would a man like me go into the temple so that he can save his life? I will not go in!"