1Now it happened in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, that Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah, and took them. 2And the king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to king Hezekiah with a great army. And he stood by the conduit of the upper pool on the highway of the fuller’s field. 3Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder, came out to him. 4And 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, your counsel and strength for the war are only vain words: now on whom do you trust, that you have rebelled against me? 6Behold, you trust in the staff of this bruised reed, even in 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 trust in him. 7But if you say to me, We trust in Yehovah our God: is not that he, whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, You shall worship before this altar? 8Now therefore, I pray you, give pledges to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders upon them. 9How then can you turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master’s servants, and put your trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? 10And have I now come up without Yehovah against this land to destroy it? Yehovah said to me, Go up against this land, and destroy it. 11Then Eliakim and Shebna and Joah said to Rabshakeh, Speak, I pray you, to your servants in the Syrian language; for we understand it: and do not speak to us in the Jews’ language, in the ears of the people who are on the wall. 12But Rabshakeh said, Has my master sent me to your master, and to you, to speak these words? has he not sent me to the men who sit upon the wall, to eat their own dung, and to drink their own water with you? 13Then Rabshakeh stood, and cried with a loud voice in the Jews’ language, 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 Yehovah, saying, Yehovah will surely deliver us; this city shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. 16Do not listen to Hezekiah: for thus says the king of Assyria, Make your peace with me, and come out to me; and eat every one of his vine, and every one of his fig-tree, and drink every one 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, Yehovah 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 Sepharvaim? and have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? 20Who are they among all the gods of these countries, who have delivered their country out of my hand, that Yehovah should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand? 21But they held their peace, and did not answer him a word; for the king’s commandment was, saying, Do not answer him. 22Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him the words of Rabshakeh.