1. Now it happened that, when Sanballat had heard that we were building the wall, he was very angry. And having been moved exceedingly, he ridiculed the Jews.
2. And he said, before his brothers and a crowd of the Samaritans: "What are the foolish Jews doing? Can it be that the Gentiles will allow them? Will they sacrifice and finish in one day? Do they have the ability to make stones out of piles of dust that have been burned up?"
3. Then too, Tobiah, an Ammonite, his assistant, said: "Let them build. When the fox climbs, he will leap over their stone wall."