Isaiah 36

Sennacherib Threatens Jerusalem

1In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all Judah’s fortified cities and captured them. 2The king of Assyria sent the Rabshakeh from Lachish to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem with a large army. He took his stand at the upper pool’s conduit, on the road to the Washer’s Field. 3Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who managed the palace, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, the recorder, went out to him. 4The Rabshakeh said to them, “Tell Hezekiah: ‘The great king, the king of Assyria, asks: What is this confidence you rely on? 5I say your counsel and strength for war are only words. On whom are you relying, that you have rebelled against me?

6Look, you rely on Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff! Anyone who leans on it will have it pierce his hand. That is what Pharaoh king of Egypt is to all who rely on him. 7If you tell me, “We rely on the LORD our God,” is he not the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed, telling Judah and Jerusalem, “You must worship before this altar”? 8Come, make a wager with my master, the king of Assyria. I will give you two thousand horses—if you can find riders for them! 9How could you repel even one governor among my master’s least important servants, when you rely on Egypt for chariots and horsemen? 10And have I come against this land to destroy it without the LORD? The LORD told me, “Attack this land and destroy it.”’”

11Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic; we understand it. Do not speak to us in Judean within hearing of the people on the wall.” 12But the Rabshakeh said, “Did my master send me to speak these words only to your master and to you? Was it not also to the men sitting on the wall, who will eat their own dung and drink their own urine along with you?” 13Then the Rabshakeh stood and called loudly in Judean: “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria! 14The king says: ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you. He cannot rescue you. 15Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to rely on the LORD by saying, “The LORD will certainly rescue us; this city will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.”

16Do not listen to Hezekiah. The king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me. Then each of you may eat from his own vine and fig tree and drink from his own cistern, 17until I come and take you to a land like your own—a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards. 18Do not let Hezekiah mislead you by saying, “The LORD will rescue us.” Has any nation’s god rescued its land from the king of Assyria? 19Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Did they rescue Samaria from my hand? 20Which god of all these lands has rescued its land from my hand? How, then, can the LORD rescue Jerusalem from my hand?’”

21They stayed silent and did not answer him a word, for the king had ordered, “Do not answer him.” 22Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace manager, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and reported the Rabshakeh’s words.