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¹ Now it happened in the fourteenth year of king Hizkiyahu, that Sancheriv king of Ashshur came up against all the fortified cities of Yehudah, and took them. ² The king of Ashshur sent Ravshakeh from Lakhish to Yerushalayim to king Hizkiyahu with a great army. He stood by the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field. ³ Then came forth to him Elyakim the son of Hilkiyah, who was over the household, and Shevna the Sofer, and Yo'ach, the son of Asaf, the recorder. ⁴ Ravshakeh said to them, Say you now to Hizkiyahu, Thus says the great king, the king of Ashshur, What confidence is this in which you trust? ⁵ 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? ⁶ Behold, you trust on the staff of this bruised reed, even on Mitzrayim, whereon if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it: so is Par`oh king of Mitzrayim to all who trust on him. ⁷ But if you tell me, We trust in the LORD our God: isn't that he, whose high places and whose altars Hizkiyahu has taken away, and has said to Yehudah and to Yerushalayim, You shall worship before this altar? ⁸ Now therefore, please give pledges to my master the king of Ashshur, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them. ⁹ How then can you turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master's servants, and put your trust on Mitzrayim for chariots and for horsemen? ¹⁰ Am I now come up without the LORD against this land to destroy it? the LORD said to me, Go up against this land, and destroy it.

¹¹ Then said Elyakim and Shevna and Yo'ach to Ravshakeh, Please speak, to your servants in the Arammian language; for we understand it: and don't speak to us in the Yehudim' language, in the ears of the people who are on the wall. ¹² But Ravshakeh 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? ¹³ Then Ravshakeh stood, and cried with a loud voice in the Yehudim' language, and said, Hear you the words of the great king, the king of Ashshur. ¹⁴ Thus says the king, Don't let Hizkiyahu deceive you; for he will not be able to deliver you: ¹⁵ neither let Hizkiyahu make you trust in the LORD, saying, the LORD will surely deliver us; this city shall not be given into the hand of the king of Ashshur. ¹⁶ Don't listen to Hizkiyahu: for thus says the king of Ashshur, Make your shalom 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; ¹⁷ 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. ¹⁸ Beware lest Hizkiyahu persuade you, 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 Ashshur? ¹⁹ Where are the gods of Hamat and Arpad? where are the gods of Sefarvayim? and have they delivered Shomron out of my hand? ²⁰ Who are they among all the gods of these countries, that have delivered their country out of my hand, that the LORD should deliver Yerushalayim out of my hand? ²¹ But they held their shalom, and answered him not a word; for the king's mitzvah was, saying, Don't answer him. ²² Then came Elyakim the son of Hilkiyah, who was over the household, and Shevna the Sofer, and Yo'ach, the son of Asaf, the recorder, to Hizkiyahu with their clothes torn, and told him the words of Ravshakeh.