Sennacherib Boasts Against the Lord
1 Nowit came to pass in the fourteenth year of King HezekiahthatSennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.
2 Then the king of Assyria senttheRabshakeh with a great army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. And he stood by the aqueduct from the upper pool, on the highway to the Fuller’s Field.
3 AndEliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household,Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came out to him.
4 ThentheRabshakeh 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 I say you speak of having plans and power for war; buttheyaremere words. Now in whom do you trust, that you rebel against me?
6 Look! You are trusting in thestaff of this broken reed, Egypt, on which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it. SoisPharaoh king of Egypt to all whotrust in him.
7 “But if you say to me, ‘We trust in theLordour God,’isitnot He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and said to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar’?” ’
8 Now therefore, I urge you, give a pledge to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses—if you are able on your part to put riders on them!
9 How then will you repel one captain of the least of my master’s servants, and put your trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen?
10 Have I now come up without theLordagainst this land to destroy it? TheLordsaid to me, ‘Go up against this land, and destroy it.’ ”
11 Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said totheRabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understandit;and do not speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people whoareon the wall.”
12 ButtheRabshakeh 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, who will eat and drink their own waste with you?”
13 ThentheRabshakeh stood and called out with a loud voice in Hebrew, 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 will not be able to deliver you;
15 nor let Hezekiah make you trust in theLord, saying, “TheLordwill surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” ’
16 Do not listen to Hezekiah; for thus says the king of Assyria: ‘Makepeacewith mebyapresent and come out to me;and every one of you eat from his own vine and every one from his own fig tree, and every one of you 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 new wine, a land of bread and vineyards.
18 Bewarelest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, “TheLordwill deliver us.” Has any one of thegods of the nations delivered its land from the hand of the king of Assyria?
19 Wherearethe gods of Hamath and Arpad? Wherearethe gods of Sepharvaim? Indeed, have they deliveredSamaria from my hand?
20 Who among all the gods of these lands have delivered their countries from my hand, that theLordshould deliver Jerusalem from my hand?’ ”
21 But they held their peace and answered him not a word; for the king’s commandment was, “Do not answer him.”
22 Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, whowasover the household, Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah withtheirclothes torn, and told him the words oftheRabshakeh.