²⁴ How can you repulse a single captain among the least of the servants of my master^[a]? Yet you rely for yourself on Egypt for chariots and horsemen! ²⁵ Have I now come up against this place without Yahweh to destroy it? Yahweh has said to me, ‘Go up against this land and destroy it!’”’”

²⁶ Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah and Shebna and Joah said to the chief commander, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we are understanding, but you must not speak Judean with us in the ears of the people who are on the wall.”