Isaiah 36

¹In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiʹah, Sennachʹerib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them. ²And the king of Assyria sent the Rabʹshakeh from Lachish to King Hezekiʹah at Jerusalem, with a great army. And he stood by the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Fuller’s Field. ³And there came out to him Eliʹakim the son of Hilkiʹah, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and Joʹah the son of Asaph, the recorder.

⁴And the Rabʹshakeh said to them, “Say to Hezekiʹah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: On what do you rest this confidence of yours? ⁵Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? On whom do you now rely, that you have rebelled against me? ⁶Behold, you are relying on 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 rely on him. ⁷But if you say to me, “We rely on the Lord our God,” is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiʹah 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 upon them. ⁹How then can you repulse a single captain among the least of my master’s servants, when you rely on 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 Eliʹakim, Shebna, and Joʹah said to the Rabʹshakeh, “Pray, 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 Rabʹshakeh 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 Rabʹshakeh 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 Hezekiʹah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you. ¹⁵Do not let Hezekiʹah make you rely on 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 Hezekiʹah; for thus says the king of Assyria: Make your peace with me and come out to me; then every one of you will eat of his own vine, and every one of his own fig tree, and every 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 Hezekiʹah 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 Sepharvaʹim? Have they delivered Samarʹia out of my hand? ²⁰Who among all the gods of these countries have delivered their countries 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 Eliʹakim the son of Hilkiʹah, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and Joʹah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiʹah with their clothes rent, and told him the words of the Rabʹshakeh.