6
Then the king said unto me (the queen also sitting by him), For how long shall thy journey be, and when wilt thou return? So the matter pleased the king, and he sent me; and I set him a time.
7
Moreover, I said unto the king, If it pleases the king, let letters be given me to the captains on the other side of the river, that they may convey me over until I come into Judah,
8
and a letter unto Asaph, the keeper of the king’s forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the palace of the house and for the wall of the city and for the house that I shall enter into. And the king granted me, according to the good hand of the LORD upon me.
9
Then I came to the captains of the other side of the river and gave them the king’s letters. Now the king had sent princes of the army and horsemen with me.
10
When Sanballat, the Horonite, and Tobiah, the slave, the Ammonite, heard
of it, it grieved them exceedingly that there was come a man to seek the welfare of the sons of Israel.
11
So I came to Jerusalem, and was there three days.
12
And I arose in the night, I and some few men with me; neither did I tell
any man what my God had put in my heart to do at Jerusalem; neither
was there any beast with me, except the beast that I rode upon.
13
And I went out by night by the gate of the valley, even before the fountain of the dragon and to the dung port and considered the walls of Jerusalem, which were broken down, and its gates were consumed with fire.
14
Then I went on to the gate of the fountain and to the king’s pool, but
there was no place for the beast
that was under me to pass.
15
Then went I up in the night by the brook and considered the wall and turned back and entered by the gate of the valley and
so returned.
16
And the rulers did not know where I had gone or what I had done; neither had I as yet told
it to the Jews nor to the priests nor to the nobles nor to the rulers nor to the rest that did the work.