Chapter 36

Sennacherib Invades Judah

1 aNow in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, bSennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and seized them.

2 And the aking of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah with a large army. And he stood by the bconduit of the upper pool on the highway of the 1fuller’s field.

3 Then aEliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and bShebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came out to him.

4 Then aRabshakeh said to them, “Say now to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, “What is this confidence that you 1have?

5 “I say, ‘Your counsel and strength for the war are only 1empty words.’ Now on whom do you rely, that ayou have rebelled against me?

6 “Behold, you rely on the astaff of this crushed reed, even on Egypt, on which if a man leans, it will go into his 1hand and pierce it. bSo is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who rely on him.

7 “But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the Lord our God,’ is it not He awhose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar’?

8 “Now therefore, 1come make a bargain with my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them.

9 “How then can you 1repulse one 2official of the least of my master’s servants and 3arely on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?

10 “Have I now come up 1without the Lord’s approval against this land to destroy it? aThe Lord said to me, ‘Go up against this land and destroy it.’ ” ’ ”

11 Then Eliakim and Shebna and Joah said to Rabshakeh, “Speak now to your servants in aAramaic, for we 1understand it; and do not speak with us in 2bJudean in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”

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

13 Then Rabshakeh stood and acried with a loud voice in Judean and said, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria.

14 “Thus says the king, ‘Do not let Hezekiah adeceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you;

15 nor let Hezekiah make you atrust in the Lord, saying, “The Lord will 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, ‘1Make your peace with me and come out to me, and eat each of his avine and each of his fig tree and drink each of the bwaters 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 ‘Beware that Hezekiah does not mislead you, saying, “aThe Lord will deliver us.” Has any one of the gods of the nations delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?

19 ‘Where are the gods of aHamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of aSepharvaim? And when have they bdelivered Samaria from my hand?

20 ‘Who among all the agods of these lands have delivered their land from my hand, that the bLord would deliver Jerusalem from my hand?’ ”

21 But they were silent and aanswered him not a word; for the king’s commandment was, “Do not answer him.”

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