Isaiah 36

¹And it came to pass 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 Rab-shakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem, to king Hezekiah, with a strong force. And he stood by the aqueduct of the upper pool, on the highway of the fuller's field.

³Then came forth to him Eliakim the son of Hilkijah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the chronicler.

⁴And Rab-shakeh said to them, Say now to Hezekiah, Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: What confidence is this in which thou trustest?

⁵Thou sayest, but it is a word of the lips, [There is] counsel and strength for war. Now on whom dost thou rely, that thou hast revolted against me?

⁶Behold, thou reliest upon the staff of that broken reed, upon Egypt, on which if a man lean, it goes into his hand, and pierces it: so is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all that rely upon him.

⁷And if thou say to me, We rely upon Jehovah our God: is it not he, whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, Ye shall worship before this altar?

⁸And now engage, I pray thee, with my master the king of Assyria, and I will give thee two thousand horses, if thou be able on thy part to set riders upon them.

⁹How then wilt thou turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master's servants? And thou reliest upon Egypt for chariots and for horsemen!

¹⁰And now am I come up without Jehovah against this land to destroy it? Jehovah said to me, Go up against this land and destroy it.