Isaiah 36:1 ←
Now in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all of the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.
Isaiah 36:2 ←
The king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to king Hezekiah with a large army. He stood by the aqueduct from the upper pool in the fuller’s field highway.
Isaiah 36:3 ←
Then 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.
Isaiah 36:4 ←
Rabshakeh said to them, “Now tell Hezekiah, ‘The great king, the king of Assyria, says, “What confidence is this in which you trust?
Isaiah 36:5 ←
I say that your counsel and strength for the war are only vain words. Now in whom do you trust, that you have rebelled against me?
Isaiah 36:6 ←
Behold, you trust in the staff of this bruised reed, even in Egypt, which if a man leans on it, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him.
Isaiah 36:7 ←
But if you tell me, ‘We trust in Yahweh our God,’ isn’t 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?’ ”
Isaiah 36:8 ←
Now therefore, please make 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 set riders on them.
Isaiah 36:9 ←
How 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?
Isaiah 36:10 ←
Have I come up now without Yahweh against this land to destroy it? Yahweh said to me, “Go up against this land, and destroy it.” ’ ”
Isaiah 36:11 ←
Then Eliakim, Shebna and Joah said to Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. Don’t speak to us in the Jews’ language in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”
Isaiah 36:12 ←
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, who will eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?”
Isaiah 36:13 ←
Then Rabshakeh stood, and called out with a loud voice in the Jews’ language, and said, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria!
Isaiah 36:14 ←
The king says, ‘Don’t let Hezekiah deceive you; for he will not be able to deliver you.
Isaiah 36:15 ←
Don’t let Hezekiah make you trust in Yahweh, saying, “Yahweh will surely deliver us. This city won’t be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” ’
Isaiah 36:16 ←
Don’t listen to Hezekiah, for the king of Assyria says, ‘Make your peace with me, and come out to me; and each of you eat from his vine, and each one from his fig tree, and each one of you drink the waters of his own cistern;
Isaiah 36:17 ←
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.
Isaiah 36:18 ←
Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, “Yahweh will deliver us.” Have any of the gods of the nations delivered their lands from the hand of the king of Assyria?
Isaiah 36:19 ←
Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they delivered Samaria from my hand?
Isaiah 36:20 ←
Who are they among all the gods of these countries that have delivered their country out of my hand, that Yahweh should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’ ”
Isaiah 36:21 ←
But they remained silent, and said nothing in reply, for the king’s commandment was, “Don’t answer him.”
Isaiah 36:22 ←
Then 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.
Public Domain