hall break down their stone wall.'

"Hear, O our God; for we are despised: and turn back their reproach
upon their own head, and give them up to spoiling in a land of
captivity: and cover not their iniquity, {219} and let not their sin
be blotted out from before thee: for they have provoked thee to anger
before the builders.

"So we built the wall; and all the wall was joined together unto
half the height thereof: for the people had a mind to work.

"But it came to pass that, when Sanballat, and Tobiah, and the
Arabians, and the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites, heard that the
repairing of the walls of Jerusalem went forward, and that the
breaches began to be stopped, then they were very wroth; and they
conspired all of them together to come and fight against Jerusalem,
and to cause confusion therein. But we made our prayer unto our God,
and set a watch against them day and night, because of them. And Judah
said, 'The strength of the bearers of burdens is decayed, and there is
much rubbish; so that we are not able to build the wall.'

"And our adversaries said, 'They shall not know, neither see, till we
come into the midst of them, and slay them, and cause the work to
cease.'

"And it came to pass that, when the Jews which dwell by them came,
they said unto us ten times from all places, 'Ye must return unto
us.'"

_Watchful and Ready_.

"Therefore set I in the lowest parts of the space behind the wall, in
the open places, I even set the people after their families with their
swords, their spears, and their bows. And I looked, and rose up, and
said to the nobles, {220} and to the rulers, and to the rest of the
people, 'Be not ye afraid of them: remember the Lord, who is great and
terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons and your daughters,
your wives and your houses.'

"And it came to pass, when our enemies heard that it was known unto
us, and God had brought their counsel to nought, that we returned all
of us to the wall, everyone unto his work. And it came to pass from
that time forth, that half of my servants wrought in the work, and
half of them held the spears, the shields, and the bows, and the coats
of mail; and the rulers were behind all the house of Judah. They that
builded the wall and they that bare burdens laded themselves, everyone
with one of his hands wrought in the work, and with the other held his
weapon; and the builders, everyone had his sword girded by his side,
and so builded. And h