Isaiah 36:10-22 ▼

10 And now, without YHWH have I come up against this land to destroy it? YHWH said to me, Go up to this land, and you have destroyed it.”

11 And Eliakim says—and Shebna and Joah—to Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants [in] Aramaic, for we are understanding; and do not speak to us [in] Jewish, in the ears of the people who [are] on the wall.”

12 And Rabshakeh says, “To your lord, and to you, has my lord sent me to speak these words? Is it not for the men—those sitting on the wall to eat their own dung and to drink their own water with you?”

13 And Rabshakeh stands and calls with a great voice [in] Jewish, and says, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Asshur—

14 thus said the king: Do not let Hezekiah lift you up, for he is not able to deliver you;

15 and do not let Hezekiah make you trust to YHWH, saying, YHWH certainly delivers us, this city is not given into the hand of the king of Asshur.

16 Do not listen to Hezekiah, for thus said the king of Asshur: Make a blessing with me, and come out to me, and each of you eat of his vine, and each of his fig tree, and each drink the waters of his own well,

17 until my coming in, and I have taken you to a land like your own land, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards;

18 lest Hezekiah persuades you, saying, YHWH delivers us. Have the gods of the nations each delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Asshur?

19 Where [are] the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where [are] the gods of Sepharvaim, that they have delivered Samaria out of my hand?

20 Who among all the gods of these lands [are] they who have delivered their land out of my hand, that YHWH delivers Jerusalem out of my hand?”

21 And they keep silent, and have not answered him a word, for a command of the king is, saying, “Do not answer him.”

22 And Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who [is] over the house, comes in, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph, the remembrancer, to Hezekiah, with torn garments, and they declare to him the words of Rabshakeh.