I went out during the night at the gate of the valley by the Dragon spring and to the Dung Gate. And I examined the walls in Jerusalem and its gates that had been destroyed by the fire.

So I went up by the valley during the night and was examining the wall. Then I returned and came to the Valley Gate and returned.

Tobiah the Ammonite was beside him and said, "Their wall of stone that they are building would break down if a fox went on it!"

Now I went into the house of Shemaiah son of Delaiah, son of Mehetabel, who was confined [at home], and he said, "Let us meet in the house of God, inside the temple, and let us close the doors of the temple; for they are coming to kill you--during the night they are coming to kill you."

All of the people went to eat, to drink, to send a share, and to have great joy because they understood the words that they had made known to them.

So the people went out and brought them and made booths for themselves, each on his roof, in their courtyards, in the courtyards of the house of God, in the public square of the Water Gate, and in the public square of the Gate of Ephraim.

But you in your many mercies did not abandon them in the desert. The column of cloud [that was] over them in the day did not cease to leave them on the way, and the column of fire by night [that] gave light to them on the way that they went.

So the children went in and took possession of the land. You subdued before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites; you gave them into their hand, and their kings and the nations of the land to do with them according to their pleasure.

Then I brought the commanders of Judah up on to the wall. I appointed two great choirs; [one went in] a procession to the right on the wall to the Dung Gate.

After them went Hoshaiah, half of the commanders of Judah,

and his brothers Shemaiah, Azarel, Milalai, Gilalai, Maai, Nethanel, Judah, and Hanani with the instruments of the songs of David the man of God; and Ezra the scribe [went] before them.

At the Fountain Gate opposite them they went up the steps of the city of David, at the assent to the wall, over the house of David, and up to the Water Gate to the east.

Then the second choir went the opposite [way]. I [followed] after them with half of the people on the wall, from over the Tower of the Ovens up to the Wide Wall

During all of this, I was not in Jerusalem because in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I went to the king. At the end of [some] days I asked permission from the king [to leave].