Isaiah 36

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

2The king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah with a formidable army. He stood by the conduit of the upper pool on the highway of the fuller's field.

3Eliakim son of Hilkiah, overseer of the household, Shebna the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went out to him.

4Rabshakeh said to them, “Tell Hezekiah now: Thus says the great king, king of Assyria, ‘What is this confidence in which you trust?’”

5I say your counsel and strength for war are only words from your lips. Now on whom do you trust, that you have rebelled against me?

6See, you trust in the staff of this crushed reed—upon Egypt—which if any man leans on, it enters his hand and pierces it; thus is Pharaoh king of Egypt to everyone who trusts in him.

7But if you say to me, “We trust in Yahweh our God,” is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed and said to Judah and Jerusalem, “Worship before this altar”?

8Now therefore, please exchange pledges with my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you can provide riders for them.

9How can you repel one captain from among the least of my master's servants, while trusting in Egypt for chariots and horsemen?

10And now, have I come up against this land to destroy it without Yahweh? Yahweh said to me, "Go up against this land and destroy it."

11Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it; do not speak to us in Jewish in the hearing of the people on the wall.”

12Rabshakeh answered, "Has my master sent me to your master and to you to speak these words—not to the men sitting on the wall, to eat their dung and excrement and to drink their piss, the waters of their feet, with you?"

13Rabshakeh stood and shouted in a loud voice in the Judean language, saying, "Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria."

14Thus the king declares: Do not let Hezekiah mislead you, for he cannot rescue you.

15Do not let Hezekiah lead you to trust Yahweh, saying, 'Yahweh will surely rescue 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 peace with me and come out to me, and each eat from his vine, each from his fig tree, and each drink the waters of his own cistern.

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

18Take care lest Hezekiah mislead you, saying, “Yahweh will deliver us.” Has any god of the nations rescued his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?

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

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

21They kept silent and answered him not a word, for it was the king's commandment, saying, "Do not answer him."

22Eliakim son of Hilkiah, overseer of the household, Shebna the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder came to Hezekiah with torn garments and reported Rabshakeh's words to him.