ight pay him due honor, and afford him whatsoever assistance he wanted,
and as he pleased. "Leave off thy sorrow then," said the king, "and
be cheerful in the performance of thy office hereafter." So Nehemiah
worshipped God, and gave the king thanks for his promise, and cleared up
his sad and cloudy countenance, by the pleasure he had from the king's
promises. Accordingly, the king called for him the next day, and gave
him an epistle to be carried to Adeus, the governor of Syria, and
Phoenicia, and Samaria; wherein he sent to him to pay due honor to
Nehemiah, and to supply him with what he wanted for his building.

7. Now when he was come to Babylon, and had taken with him many of his
countrymen, who voluntarily followed him, he came to Jerusalem in the
twenty and fifth year of the reign of Xerxes. And when he had shown the
epistles to God [13] he gave them to Adeus, and to the other governors.
He also called together all the people to Jerusalem, and stood in the
midst of the temple, and made the following speech to them: "You know, O
Jews, that God hath kept our fathers, Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in
mind continually, and for the sake of their righteousness hath not
left off the care of you. Indeed he hath assisted me in gaining this
authority of the king to raise up our wall, and finish what is wanting
of the temple. I desire you, therefore who well know the ill-will
our neighboring nations bear to us, and that when once they are made
sensible that we are in earnest about building, they will come upon us,
and contrive many ways of obstructing our works, that you will, in
the first place, put your trust in God, as in him that will assist us
against their hatred, and to intermit building neither night nor day,
but to use all diligence, and to hasten on the work, now we have this
especial opportunity for it." When he had said this, he gave order that
the rulers should measure the wall, and part the work of it among the
people, according to their villages and cities, as every one's ability
should require. And when he had added this promise, that he himself,
with his servants, would assist them, he dissolved the assembly. So the
Jews prepared for the work: that is the name they are called by from
the day that they came up from Babylon, which is taken from the tribe
of Judah, which came first to these places, and thence both they and the
country gained that appellation.

8. But now when the Ammonites, and Moabites, and