CHAPTER 36
1 And it was done in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, Sennacherib, the king of Assyrians, ascended [or went up] on all the strong cities of Judah, and took them.
2 And the king of Assyrians sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem, to king Hezekiah, with great power; and he stood at the water conduit of the higher cistern, in the way of the field of a fuller, or tucker.
3 And Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, that was on the house, went out to him, and Shebna, the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the chancellor.
4 And Rabshakeh said to them, Say ye to Hezekiah, The great king, the king of Assyrians, saith these things, What is the trust, in which thou trustest?
5 either by what counsel either strength disposest thou for to rebel? on whom hast thou trust, for thou hast gone away from me?
6 Lo! thou trustest on this broken staff of reed, on Egypt, on which if a man leaneth, either resteth, it shall enter into his hand, and shall pierce it; so doeth Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, to all men that trust in him.
7 That if thou answerest to me, We trust in our Lord God [or in the Lord our God]; whether it is not he, whose high places and altars Hezekiah did away, and he said to Judah and to Jerusalem, Ye shall worship before this altar?
8 And now betake thee to my lord, the king of Assyrians, and I shall give to thee two thousand horses, and thou mayest not give of thee riders of those horses.
9 And how shalt thou abide the face of the judge of one place of the less servants of my lord? That if thou trustest in Egypt, and in carts, and in knights;
10 and now whether I ascended [or went up] to this land without the Lord, that I should destroy it? The Lord said to me, Ascend thou [or Go up] on this land, and destroy thou it.
11 And Eliakim, and Shebna, and Joah, said to Rabshakeh, Speak thou to thy servants by the language of Syria, for we understand; speak thou not to us by the language of Jews, in the ears of the people, which is on the wall.
12 And Rabshakeh said to them, Whether my lord sent me to thy lord, and to thee, that I should speak all these words, and not rather to the men that sit on the wall, that they eat their turds, and drink the piss off their feet, with you?
13 And Rabshakeh stood, and cried with [a] great voice in the language of Jews, and said, Hear ye the words of the great king, the king of Assyrians.
14 The king saith these things, Hezekiah deceive not you, for he may not deliver you;
15 and Hezekiah give not to you trust on the Lord, and say, The Lord delivering shall deliver us; this city shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyrians.
16 Do not ye hear Hezekiah. For why the king of Assyrians saith these things, Make ye blessing with me, and go ye out to me; and eat ye each man his vinery [or his vine], and each man his fig tree, and drink ye each man the water of his cistern,
17 till I come, and take away you to a land which is as your land; to a land of wheat and of wine, to a land of loaves and of vineries [or vines].
18 Hezekiah trouble not you, and say, The Lord shall deliver us. Whether the gods of folks delivered each his land from the hand of the king of Assyrians?
19 Where is the god of Hamath, and of Arphad? Where is the god of Sepharvaim? Whether they delivered Samaria from mine hand?
20 Who is of all [the] gods of these lands, that delivered his land from mine hand, that the Lord deliver Jerusalem from mine hand?
21 And they were still, and answered not to him a word. For why the king commanded to them, and said, Answer ye not to him.
22 And Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, that was on the house, and Shebna, the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, chancellor, entered with rent clothes to Hezekiah, and told to him the words of Rabshakeh.