1. When word came to Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab and the rest of our enemies that I had rebuilt the wall and not a gap was left in it – though up to that time I had not set the doors in the gates –
2. Sanballat and Geshem sent me this message: ‘Come, let us meet together in one of the villages on the plain of Ono.’But they were scheming to harm me;
3. so I sent messengers to them with this reply: ‘I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?’
4. Four times they sent me the same message, and each time I gave them the same answer.