⁴ This is what the Sovereign Lord says: “Long ago my people chose to live in Egypt. Now they are oppressed by Assyria.

⁶ They also took all their livestock and all the personal belongings they had acquired in the land of Canaan. So Jacob and his entire family went to Egypt—

¹⁴ Then Joseph sent for his father, Jacob, and all his relatives to come to Egypt, seventy-five persons in all. ¹⁵ So Jacob went to Egypt. He died there, as did our ancestors.

²⁵ This fulfills what is written in their Scriptures^[a]: ‘They hated me without cause.’

Hope for God’s People

Assyria Invades Judah

36 In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign,^[a] King Sennacherib of Assyria came to attack the fortified towns of Judah and conquered them. ² Then the king of Assyria sent his chief of staff^[b] from Lachish with a huge army to confront King Hezekiah in Jerusalem. The Assyrians took up a position beside the aqueduct that feeds water into the upper pool, near the road leading to the field where cloth is washed.^[c]

³ These are the officials who went out to meet with them: Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace administrator; Shebna the court secretary; and Joah son of Asaph, the royal historian.

Sennacherib Threatens Jerusalem

⁴ Then the Assyrian king’s chief of staff told them to give this message to Hezekiah:

¹¹ Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the Assyrian chief of staff, “Please speak to us in Aramaic, for we understand it well. Don’t speak in Hebrew,^[e] for the people on the wall will hear.”

¹² But Sennacherib’s chief of staff replied, “Do you think my master sent this message only to you and your master? He wants all the people to hear it, for when we put this city under siege, they will suffer along with you. They will be so hungry and thirsty that they will eat their own dung and drink their own urine.”

¹³ Then the chief of staff stood and shouted in Hebrew to the people on the wall, “Listen to this message from the great king of Assyria! ¹⁴ This is what the king says: Don’t let Hezekiah deceive you. He will never be able to rescue you. ¹⁵ Don’t let him fool you into trusting in the Lord by saying, ‘The Lord will surely rescue us. This city will never fall into the hands of the Assyrian king!’

¹⁶ “Don’t listen to Hezekiah! These are the terms the king of Assyria is offering: Make peace with me—open the gates and come out. Then each of you can continue eating from your own grapevine and fig tree and drinking from your own well. ¹⁷ Then I will arrange to take you to another land like this one—a land of grain and new wine, bread and vineyards.

¹⁸ “Don’t let Hezekiah mislead you by saying, ‘The Lord will rescue us!’ Have the gods of any other nations ever saved their people from the king of Assyria? ¹⁹ What happened to the gods of Hamath and Arpad? And what about the gods of Sepharvaim? Did any god rescue Samaria from my power? ²⁰ What god of any nation has ever been able to save its people from my power? So what makes you think that the Lord can rescue Jerusalem from me?”

²¹ But the people were silent and did not utter a word because Hezekiah had commanded them, “Do not answer him.”

²² Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace administrator; Shebna the court secretary; and Joah son of Asaph, the royal historian, went back to Hezekiah. They tore their clothes in despair, and they went in to see the king and told him what the Assyrian chief of staff had said.