He is ready now to put his scheme before the people of Jerusalem.

He finds the city governed by no single man, but by a kind of town council.

He now summons a meeting of these rulers, and he also invites the nobles and the working men to be present.

Then he makes his appeal: 'Ye see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lieth waste, and the gates thereof are burned with fire: come, and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, that we be no more a reproach.' Then, to cheer them on to make the effort, he tells them how God has helped him up to that point; he tells them what the good hand has done for him already in opening the king's heart and the king's purse.
What response does he meet with?
As one man that large assembly rises and joins in the cry, 'Let us rise up and build.' Happy Nehemiah to find such ready help, to find those he speaks to willing at once to fall in with his scheme, and to aid him in his work.
It is to be feared that had he lived in our more cautious and calculating days, Nehemiah would have had many a bucket of cold water thrown on him and his plan.

One would have risen and would have said, 'The work is too hard, the heaps of rubbish are too great, it is impossible to undertake such a task.