Nehemiah 4

¹And it came to pass, that when Sanaballat heard that we were building the wall he was angry: and being moved exceedingly he scoffed at the Jews.

²And said before his brethren, and the multitude of the Samaritans: What are the silly Jews doing? Will the Gentiles let them alone? will they sacrifice and make an end in a day? are they able to raise stones out of the heaps of the rubbish, which are burnt?

³Tobias also the Ammonite who was by him said: Let them build: if a fox go up, he will leap over their stone wall.

⁴Hear thou our God, for we are despised: turn their reproach upon their own head, and give them to be despised in a land of captivity.

⁵Cover not their iniquity, and let not their sin be blotted out from before thy face, because they have mocked thy builders.

⁶So we built the wall, and joined it all together unto the half thereof: and the heart of the people was excited to work.

⁷And it came to pass, when Sanaballat, and Tobias, and the Arabians, and the Ammonites, and the Azotians heard that the walls of Jerusalem were made up, and the breaches began to be closed, that they were exceedingly angry.

⁸And they all assembled themselves together, to come, and to fight against Jerusalem, and to prepare ambushes.

⁹And we prayed to our God, and set watchmen upon the wall day and night against them.

¹⁰And Juda said: The strength of the bearer of burdens is decayed, and the rubbish is very much, and we shall not be able to build the wall.

¹¹And our enemies said: Let them not know, nor understand, till we come in the midst of them, and kill them, and cause the work to cease.