Chapter 36

  Now it happened in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, that Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah, and took them.  

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  The king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to king Hezekiah with a great army. He stood by the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field.  

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  Then came forth to him Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder.  

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  Rabshakeh said to them, Say you now to Hezekiah, Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, What confidence is this in which you trust?  

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  I say, [your] counsel and strength for the war are but vain words: now on whom do you trust, that you have rebelled against me?  

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  Behold, you trust on the staff of this bruised reed, even on Egypt, whereon if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it: so is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust on him.  

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  But if you tell me, We trust in Yahweh our God: isn't that he, whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, You shall worship before this altar?  

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  Now therefore, please give pledges to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you be able on your part to set riders on them.  

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  How then can you turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master's servants, and put your trust on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?  

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  Am I now come up without Yahweh against this land to destroy it? Yahweh said to me, Go up against this land, and destroy it.  

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  Then said Eliakim and Shebna and Joah to Rabshakeh, Please speak, to your servants in the Syrian language; for we understand it: and don't speak to us in the Jews' language, in the ears of the people who are on the wall.  

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  But Rabshakeh said, Has my master sent me to your master, and to you, to speak these words? [has he] not [sent me] to the men who sit on the wall, to eat their own dung, and to drink their own water with you?  

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  Then Rabshakeh stood, and cried with a loud voice in the Jews' language, and said, Hear you the words of the great king, the king of Assyria.  

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  Thus says the king, Don't let Hezekiah deceive you; for he will not be able to deliver you:  

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  neither let Hezekiah make you trust in Yahweh, saying, Yahweh will surely deliver us; this city shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.  

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  Don't listen to Hezekiah: for thus says the king of Assyria, Make your peace with me, and come out to me; and eat you everyone of his vine, and everyone of his fig-tree, and drink you everyone the waters of his own cistern;  

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  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.  

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  Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, Yahweh will deliver us. Has any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?  

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  Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? where are the gods of Sepharvaim? and have they delivered Samaria out of my hand?  

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  Who are they among all the gods of these countries, that have delivered their country out of my hand, that Yahweh should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?  

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  But they held their peace, and answered him not a word; for the king's commandment was, saying, Don't answer him.  

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  Then came Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder, to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him the words of Rabshakeh.  

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