Bible verse
So I sent messengers to them, saying, “I am doing a great work and cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it to go down to you?”
Nehemiah 6:3 · BSB
The verses around it, from Nehemiah 6.
1 When Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab, and the rest of our enemies heard that I had rebuilt the wall and not a gap was left—though to that time I had not yet installed the doors in the gates—
2 Sanballat and Geshem sent me this message: “Come, let us meet together in one of the villages on the plain of Ono.” But they were planning to harm me.
3 So I sent messengers to them, saying, “I am doing a great work and cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it to go down to you?”
4 Four times they sent me the same message, and each time I gave the same reply.
5 The fifth time, Sanballat sent me this same message by his young servant, who had in his hand an unsealed letter
6 that read: “It is reported among the nations—and Geshem agrees—that you and the Jews are plotting to revolt, and this is why you are building the wall. According to these reports, you are to become their king,
7 and you have even appointed prophets in Jerusalem to proclaim on your behalf: ‘There is a king in Judah.’ Soon these rumors will reach the ears of the king. So come, let us confer together.”
KJV
And I sent messengers unto them, saying, I [am] doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you?
ASV
And I sent messengers unto them, saying, I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you?
ERV
And I sent messengers unto them, saying, I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: Why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you?
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Scripture quotations are from the Berean Standard Bible, which is free of copyright restrictions for use on websites. Read the full Bible on Great Faith.