Isaiah 36

¹In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah , Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.

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

³And there came out to him Eliakim the son of Hilkiah , who was over the household , and Shebna the secretary , and Joah the son of Asaph , the recorder .

⁴And the Rabshakeh said to them, Say to Hezekiah , Thus says the great king , the king of Assyria : On what do you rest this trust of yours ?

⁵Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war ? In whom do you now trust , that you have rebelled against me?

⁶Behold , you are trusting in Egypt , that broken reed of a staff , which will pierce the hand of any man who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him.

⁷But if you say to me, We trust in the Lord our God , is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed , saying to Judah and to Jerusalem , You shall worship before this altar ?

⁸Come now , make a wager with my master the king of Assyria : I will give you two thousand horses , if you are able on your part to set riders on them.

⁹How then can you repulse a single captain among the least of my master’s servants , when you trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen ?

¹⁰Moreover, is it without the Lord that I have come up against this land to destroy it? The Lord said to me, Go up against this land and destroy it.

¹¹Then Eliakim , Shebna , and Joah said to the Rabshakeh , Please speak to your servants in Aramaic , for we understand it. Do not speak to us in the language of Judah within the hearing of the people who are on the wall .

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

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

¹⁴Thus says the king : Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you.

¹⁵Do not let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord by saying , The Lord will surely deliver us. This city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria .

¹⁶Do not listen to Hezekiah . For thus says the king of Assyria : Make your peace with me and come out to me. Then each one of you will eat of his own vine , and each one of his own fig tree , and each one of you will drink the water of his own cistern ,

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

¹⁸Beware lest Hezekiah mislead you by saying , The Lord will deliver us. Has any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria ?

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

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

²¹But they were silent and answered him not a word , for the king’s command was , Do not answer him.

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