2. And 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?
3. Tobias also the Ammonite who was by him said: Let them build: if a fox go up, he will leap over their stone wall.
4. Hear 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.
5. Cover not their iniquity, and let not their sin be blotted out from before thy face, because they have mocked thy builders.
6. So we built the wall, and joined it all together unto the half thereof: and the heart of the people was excited to work.
7. And 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.
8. And they all assembled themselves together, to come, and to fight against Jerusalem, and to prepare ambushes.
9. And we prayed to our God, and set watchmen upon the wall day and night against them.
10. And 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.
11. And 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.
12. And it came to pass, that when the Jews that dwelt by them came and told us ten times, out of all the places from whence they came to us,
13. I set the people in the place behind the wall round about in order, with their swords, and spears, and bows.