Then said I unto them,.... The priests and princes of the Jews:
you see the distress that we are in; lie open to our enemies, and exposed to their insults:
how Jerusalem lieth waste, and the gates thereof are burnt with fire, Nehemiah 1:3,
come, and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem that we be no more a reproach; to their neighbours about them, who scoffed at them as a defenceless people and frequently came in upon them, and spoiled and plundered them of their goods and substance.