Study Desk

Then ^(g)Rabshakeh said to them, "Say now to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, "What is this confidence that you ^[b]have?

I say, ‘Your counsel and strength for the war are only ^[c]empty words.' Now on whom do you rely, that ^(h)you have rebelled against me?

Behold, you rely on the ⁽ⁱ⁾staff of this crushed reed, even on Egypt, on which if a man leans, it will go into his ^[d]hand and pierce it. ^(j)So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who rely on him.

But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the Lord our God,' is it not He ^(k)whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar'?

Now therefore, ^[e]come make a bargain with my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them.

How then can you ^[f]repulse one ^[g]official of the least of my master's servants and ^[h](l)rely on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?

Have I now come up ^[i]without the Lord's approval against this land to destroy it? ^(m)The Lord said to me, ‘Go up against this land and destroy it.'"'"

Then Eliakim and Shebna and Joah said to Rabshakeh, "Speak now to your servants in ⁽ⁿ⁾Aramaic, for we ^[j]understand it; and do not speak with us in ^[k](o)Judean in the hearing of the people who are on the wall."

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, doomed to eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?"

Then Rabshakeh stood and ^(p)cried with a loud voice in Judean and said, "Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria.

Thus says the king, ‘Do not let Hezekiah ^(q)deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you;

nor let Hezekiah make you ^(r)trust in the Lord , saying, "The Lord will surely deliver us, this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria."

Do not listen to Hezekiah,' for thus says the king of Assyria, ‘^[l]Make your peace with me and come out to me, and eat each of his ^(s)vine and each of his fig tree and drink each of the ^(t)waters of his own cistern,

until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards.

Beware that Hezekiah does not mislead you, saying, "^(u)The Lord will deliver us." Has any one of the gods of the nations delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?

Where are the gods of ^(v)Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of ^(w)Sepharvaim? And when have they ^(x)delivered Samaria from my hand?

Who among all the ^(y)gods of these lands have delivered their land from my hand, that the ^(z) Lord would deliver Jerusalem from my hand?'"