1And it was in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah that Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.2The king of Assyria sent the Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah with a heavy force, and he stood at the conduit of the upper pool on the highway of the washer's field.3Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was over the house, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder came out to him.4The Rabshakeh said to them, "Please say to Hezekiah: Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: What is this trust in which you have trusted?"5You said, 'Surely a word of the lips is counsel and might for battle.' Now upon whom have you trusted, that you have rebelled against me?6Behold, you have trusted upon the staff of this crushed branch, upon Egypt, which a man leans upon and it enters his palm and pierces it; so is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust upon him.7And if you say to me, 'We have trusted in the LORD our God,' is it not he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has removed, and who has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, 'Before this altar you shall bow'?8Now therefore pledge yourself please with my lord the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to supply riders for them.9And how will you turn back the face of one of the smallest governors among the servants of my lord, when you trust to yourself upon Egypt for chariot and for horsemen?10And now, is it apart from the LORD that I have come up against this land to ruin it? The LORD said to me, 'Go up against this land and ruin it.'11Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, "Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it, and do not speak to us in Judahite in the hearing of the people who are on the wall."12But the Rabshakeh said, "Has my lord sent me to speak these words only to your lord and to you? Has he not sent me to the men who sit upon the wall, that they may eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?"13Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out with a loud voice in Judahite and said, "Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria."14Thus says the king: Let not Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to rescue you.15And let not Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD by saying, 'The LORD will surely rescue us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.'16Do not listen to Hezekiah, for thus says the king of Assyria: Make peace with me and come out to me; then each man may eat from his own vine and his own fig tree and drink water from his own cistern.17Until I come and take you to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards.18Do not let Hezekiah mislead you when he says, 'The LORD will rescue us.' Have the gods of the nations rescued each his own land from the hand of the king of Assyria?19Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? And have they rescued Samaria from my hand?20Who among all the gods of these lands has rescued their land from my hand, that the LORD should rescue Jerusalem from my hand?21But they were silent and answered him not a word, for the king's command was, "You shall not answer him."22Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was over the house, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder came to Hezekiah with their garments torn, and they reported to him the words of the Rabshakeh.