Isaiah 36

¹And it came to pass in the fourteenth year of king Ezechias, that Sennacherib king of the Assyrians came up against all the fenced cities of Juda, and took them.

²And the king of the Assyrians sent Rabsaces from Lachis to Jerusalem, to king Ezechias with a great army, and he stood by the conduit of the upper pool in the way of the fuller’s held.

³And there went out to him Eliacim the son of Helcias, who was over the house, and Sobna the scribe, and Joahe the son of Asaph the recorder.

⁴And Rabsaces said to them: Tell Ezechias: Thus saith the great king, the king of the Assyrians: What is this confidence wherein thou trustest?

⁵Or with what counsel or strength dost thou prepare for war? on whom dost thou trust, that thou art revolted from me?

⁶Lo thou trustest upon this broken staff of a reed, upon Egypt: upon which if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it: so is Pharao king or Egypt to all that trust in him.

⁷But if thou wilt answer me: We trust in the Lord our God: is it not he whose high places and altars Ezechias hath taken away, and hath said to Juda and Jerusalem: You shall worship before this altar?

⁸And now deliver thyself up to my lord the king of the Assyrians, and I will give thee two thousand horses, and thou wilt not be able on thy part to find riders for them.

⁹And how wilt thou stand against the face of the judge of one place, of the least of my master’s servants? But if thou trust in Egypt, in chariots and in horsemen:

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