1In the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the walled cities of Judah, and he took them.
2The king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh with a great army from Lachish to Jerusalem, to king Hezekiah. Rabshakeh stood by the water channel of the upper pool, on the road to the washer's field.
3Then three men came out to him: Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph, the recorder.
4Rabshakeh said to them, "Say to Hezekiah: This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: What is this confidence of yours? What are you trusting in?"
5You say you have a plan and strength for war, but those are only empty words. Now, who are you trusting in, that you have rebelled against me?
6Look, you are trusting in Egypt, which is a broken reed for a walking stick. If a man leans on it, it will go into his hand and pierce it. That is what Pharaoh king of Egypt is like to everyone who trusts in him.
7But if you say to me, 'We trust in the LORD our God,' is he not the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah has taken away? Hezekiah said to Judah and to Jerusalem, 'You must worship in front of this altar.'
8So now, make a bargain with my master the king of Assyria. I will give you two thousand horses, if you can find riders to put on them.
9How then could you drive back even one captain of the least of my master's servants? Yet you trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen.
10"And have I come up against this land to destroy it without the LORD? The LORD said to me, 'Go up against this land and destroy it.'"
11Then Eliakim and Shebna and Joah said to Rabshakeh, "Please speak to your servants in the Syrian language, for we understand it. Do not speak to us in the Jews' language, where the people on the wall can hear."
12But Rabshakeh said, "Has my master sent me to speak these words only to your master and to you? Has he not sent me to the men sitting on the wall, who will have to eat their own dung and drink their own urine along with you?"
13Then Rabshakeh stood and shouted in a loud voice in the Jews' language, "Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria."
14This is what the king says: Do not let Hezekiah fool you, for he will not be able to save you.
15Do not let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD by saying, 'The LORD will surely save us. This city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.'
16Do not listen to Hezekiah. This is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me. Then each of you will eat from his own vine and his own fig tree, and each of you will drink the water of his own well,
17until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards.
18Be careful that Hezekiah does not talk you round by saying, 'The LORD will save us.' Has any of the gods of the nations saved his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?
19Where are the gods of Hamath and Arphad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Did they save Samaria from my hand?
20"Which of all the gods of these lands has saved his land from my hand? So how could the LORD save Jerusalem from my hand?"
21But the people stayed silent and did not answer him a word, because the king had commanded, "Do not answer him."