Isaiah 36

Sennacherib Boasts Against the Lord

36Now ^ait 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. ²Then the king of Assyria sent the ¹Rabshakeh 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. ³And ^bEliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, ^cShebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came out to him.

^4dThen the 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? ⁵I say you speak of having plans and power for war; but they are ²mere words. Now in whom do you trust, that you rebel against me? ⁶Look! You are trusting in the ^estaff of this broken reed, Egypt, on which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who ^ftrust in him.

⁷“But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the Lord our God,’ is it not He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and said to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar’?” ’ ⁸Now 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! ⁹How then will you repel one captain of the least of my master’s servants, and put your trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen? ¹⁰Have I now come up without the Lord 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; and do not speak to us in ³Hebrew in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”

¹²But the 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, who will eat and drink their own waste with you?”

¹³Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out with a loud voice in Hebrew, and said, “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; ¹⁵nor let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, 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 peace with me by a present and come out to me; ^gand 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; ¹⁷until 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. ¹⁸Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, “The Lord will deliver us.” Has any one of the ^hgods of the nations delivered its land from the hand of the king of Assyria? ¹⁹Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Indeed, have they delivered ⁱSamaria from my hand? ²⁰Who among all the gods of these lands have delivered their countries from my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem from my hand?’ ”

²¹But they ⁴held their peace and answered him not a word; for the king’s commandment was, “Do not answer him.” ²²Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him the words of the Rabshakeh.