But Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official and Geshem the Arab heard it. And they mocked us and despised us and said, “What is this thing you are doing? Are you rebelling against the king?”
But the former governors who were before me laid heavy burdens on the people and took from them bread and wine besides forty shekels of silver; even their young men exerted their power over the people. But I did not do so because of the fear of God.
For I will no longer spare the inhabitants of the land,” declares Yahweh; “but behold, I will cause the men to fall, each into another’s hand and into the hand of his king; and they will crush the land, and I will not deliver them from their hand.”