Isaías 36

¹ Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah that Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.

² And the king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem, to King Hezekiah, with a great army. And he stood by the aqueduct of the upper pool, on the highway to the Fuller’s Field.

³ Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the house, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder, came out to him.

⁴ And Rabshakeh said to them, Say now to Hezekiah, Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, What confidence is this in which you trust?

⁵ You say (but they are only words of the lips), I have counsel and strength for war. Now, in whom do you trust, that you rebel against me?

⁶ Lo, you trust in the staff of this broken reed, on Egypt; on which, if a man leans on it, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him.

⁷ But if you say to me, We trust in Jehovah our God; is it not He whose high places and altars Hezekiah has taken away, and said to Judah and Jerusalem, You shall bow down before this altar?

⁸ Now then, please exchange pledges with my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you are even able on your part to put riders on them.

⁹ How then will you repel the face of one commander of the least of my master’s servants, and put your trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?

¹⁰ Have I now come up without Jehovah against this land to destroy it? Jehovah said to me, Go up against this land and destroy it.

¹¹ Then Eliakim and Shebna and Joah said to Rabshakeh, Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. But do not speak to us in the Jewish language in the ears of the people who are on the wall.

¹² But Rabshakeh said, Has my master sent me to your master and to you to speak these words, and not to the men who sit on the wall, that they may eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?

¹³ Then Rabshakeh stood and called out with a loud voice in the Jewish language and said, Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria!

¹⁴ Thus says the king, Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he shall not be able to deliver you!

¹⁵ Nor let Hezekiah make you trust in Jehovah, saying, Jehovah will deliver, to rescue us; this city shall not be given into the hands of the king of Assyria!

¹⁶ Do not listen to Hezekiah; for thus says the king of Assyria, Make a peace treaty with me, and come out to me; and let everyone eat of his vine, and everyone of his fig tree, and everyone drink the waters of his own cistern,

¹⁷ until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and fresh wine, a land of bread and vineyards!

¹⁸ Let not Hezekiah persuade you, saying, Jehovah will deliver us. Have any of the gods of the nations delivered their land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?

¹⁹ Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Indeed, have they delivered Samaria out of my hand?

²⁰ Who among all the gods of these lands have delivered their land out of my hand, that Jehovah should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?

²¹ But they kept silent and did not answer him a word, for the king’s command said, Do not answer him.

²² Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and reported to him the words of Rabshakeh.