Enemies Try Four Times to Lure Nehemiah to a Meeting — To Kill Him There
As the wall nears completion, Sanballat and Geshem send Nehemiah a message: 'Come, let us meet together in one of the villages in the plain of Ono.' Nehemiah knows it is a trap — they intend to harm him. He replies: '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?' They send the same message four times. He sends the same answer four times. A fifth message arrives with an unsealed letter: rumors are spreading that Nehemiah is planning to make himself king and rebel against Persia. 'Come, let us confer together.' Nehemiah replies: 'Nothing like what you are saying is happening; you are just making it up.'
Enemies Try Four Times to Lure Nehemiah to a Meeting — To Kill Him There
Now when it was reported to Sanballat, Tobiah, and to Geshem the Arabian, and to the rest of our enemies, that I had built the wall, and that there was no breach left in it (though even to that time I had not set up the doors in the gates)