Isaiah 36

Revised Geneva Translation

36 Now, in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib, King of Assyria, came up against all the strong cities of Judah, and took them.

² And the King of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish toward Jerusalem, to king Hezekiah, with a great army. And he stood by the conduit of the upper pool, in the path of the launderer’s field.

³ Then, Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah (the steward of the house) and Shebna (the chancellor) and Joah (the son of Asaph, the recorder) came forth to him.

⁴ And Rabshakeh said to them, “Please tell Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, “What confidence is this, in which you trust?

⁵ “I tell you, surely your eloquence, counsel and strength are for war. On whom, then, do you trust, that you rebel against me?

⁶ “Lo, you trust in this broken staff of a reed, in Egypt, whereupon if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it, as is Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to all who trust in him.

⁷ “But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the LORD our God,’ is not that He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah took down and said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar’?

⁸ “Now, therefore, give hostages to my lord, the king of Assyria. And I will give you two thousand horses (if you are able, on your part), to set riders upon them.

⁹ “For how can you despise any captain of the least of my lord’s servants and still put your trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?

¹⁰ “And have I now come up without the LORD to this land, to destroy it? The LORD said to me, ‘Go up against this land and destroy it’.”

¹¹ Then Eliakim and Shebna and Joah said to Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in the Aramaic language. For we understand it. And do not talk with us in the Jews’ tongue in front of the people who are on the wall.”

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 eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?”

¹³ So Rabshakeh stood and cried with a loud voice in the Jews’ language, and said, “Hear the words of the great king, of the king of Assyria!

¹⁴ “Thus says the king, ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you (for he shall not be able to deliver you)

¹⁵ ‘or let Hezekiah make you to trust in the LORD, saying, “The LORD will surely deliver us. This city shall not be given over into the hand of the king of Assyria.”

¹⁶ ‘Do not listen to Hezekiah! For thus says the king of Assyria, “Make an appointment with me. And come out to me, so that every man may eat of his own vine, and every man of his own fig tree, and every man drink the water of his own well,

¹⁷ “until I come and bring you to a land like your own land, a land of wheat and wine, a land of bread and vineyards,

¹⁸ “lest Hezekiah deceives you, saying, ‘The LORD will deliver us.’ Has any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?

¹⁹ “Where is the god of Hamath, and of Arpad? Where is the god of Sepharvaim? Or how have they delivered Samaria out of my hand?

²⁰ “Who is he among all the gods of these lands who has delivered their country out of my hand. And the LORD will deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?”’”

²¹ Then they kept silent. And did not answer him a word. For the king’s commandment was, saying, “Do not answer him.”

²² Then came Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah (the steward of the house) and Shebna (the chancellor) and Joah (the son of Asaph, the recorder) to Hezekiah with torn clothes, and told him the words of Rabshakeh.