Isaiah 36:11-22

English Standard Version

¹¹ Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants ^(A)in Aramaic, for we understand it. Do not speak to us in the language of Judah within the hearing of the people who are on the wall.” ¹² But the Rabshakeh said, “Has my master sent me to speak these words to your master and to you, and not to the men sitting on the wall, who are doomed with you to eat their own dung and drink their own urine?”

¹³ Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out in a loud voice in the language of Judah: “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria! ¹⁴ Thus says the king: ^(B)‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you. ¹⁵ Do not let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord by saying, “The Lord will surely deliver us. This city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” ¹⁶ Do not listen to Hezekiah. For thus says the king of Assyria: Make your peace with me^[a] and come out to me. Then each one of you will eat of his own vine, and each one of his own fig tree, and each one of you will drink the water of his own cistern, ¹⁷ until ^(C)I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards. ¹⁸ Beware lest Hezekiah mislead you by 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 (D)Where are the gods of ^(E)Hamath and ^(F)Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? ^(G)Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? ^20 (H)Who among all the gods of these lands have delivered their lands out of my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’”

²¹ But they were silent and answered him not a word, for the king's command was, “Do not answer him.” ^22 (I)Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him the words of the Rabshakeh.