Ezra and Nehemiah

The book of Ezra has no chapter 3:16, but I could go on in chapter 4 and use verse 3. Instead I have chosen to put Ezra and Nehemiah together as it's the same time period and also describes the same topic. 

Nehemiah 3:16

16 After him repaired Nehemiah the son of Azbuk, the ruler of the half part of Bethzur, unto the place over against the sepulchres of David, and to the pool that was made, and unto the house of the mighty.

Ezra before him and many men after Nehemiah started coming back from excile and had it in their hearts desire to rebuild the temple: the gates were burned and Jerusalem was still in ruins. 

They got a lot of opposition.

Once I started designing a few things came in mind:

There was a lot of prayer involved and answer to prayer too. I thought about a ladder as a symbol of prayer going up and down. A ladder also would have been used in a literal way.

There needed to be ruins, grave yards, sword and trowel ( 4:18 For the builders, every one had his sword girded by his side, and so builded.) And symbols of hope.

Lot of free motion, but I thought the wall was too solid. Risking cutting some layers away.....

I was nearly finished when I started writing the verse over and under the rainbow. I really didn't like it:( So I cut of the whole top part and instead used a black, mottled fabric. This way the sword and trowel could be hand stitched and be more visible. I am glad I took the pain. It's nearly done now. Need to darken the stones and do some more free motion stitching. I have done a lot of slow stitching on this as I thought it quite fitting with all the manual labour this is depicting.