Isaiah 36

¹ In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified towns of Judah and captured them.

² From Lachish the king of Assyria sent the cupbearer-in-chief with a large force to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem. The cupbearer-in-chief took up a position near the conduit of the upper pool on the road to the Fuller’s Field.

³ The master of the palace, Eliakim son of Hilkiah, Shebna the secretary and the herald Joah son of Asaph went out to him.

⁴ The cupbearer-in-chief said to them, ‘Say to Hezekiah, “The great king, the king of Assyria, says to you: What makes you so confident?

⁵ Do you think empty words are as good as strategy and military strength? Who are you relying on, to dare to rebel against me?

⁶ We know you are relying on that broken reed – Egypt – which pricks and pierces the hand of the man who leans on it. – That is what Pharaoh, king of Egypt, is like to all who rely on him. –

⁷ You may say to me: We rely on Yahweh our God, but are they not his high places and altars that Hezekiah has suppressed, saying to the people of Judah and Jerusalem: Here is the altar before which you must worship?

⁸ Come, make a wager with my lord the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses if you can find horsemen to ride them.

⁹ How could you repulse a single one of the least of my master’s servants? And yet you have relied on Egypt for chariots and horsemen.

¹⁰ And lastly, have I come up against this country to lay it waste without warrant from Yahweh? Yahweh himself said to me: March against this country and lay it waste.”‘

¹¹ Eliakim, Shebna and Joah said to the cupbearer-in-chief, ‘Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it; do not speak to us in the Judaean language within earshot of the people on the ramparts’.

¹² But the cupbearer-in-chief said, ‘Do you think my lord sent me here to say these things to your master or to you? On the contrary, it was to the people sitting on the ramparts who, like you, are doomed to eat their own dung and drink their own urine.’

¹³ Then the cupbearer-in-chief stood erect and, shouting loudly in the Judaean language, called out, ‘Listen to the words of the great king, the king of Assyria.

¹⁴ The king says to you: “Do not let Hezekiah delude you! He will be powerless to save you.

¹⁵ Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to rely on Yahweh by saying: Yahweh is sure to save us; this city will not fall into the power of the king of Assyria.”

¹⁶ Do not listen to Hezekiah, for the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me,

¹⁷ surrender to me, and every one of you will eat the fruit of his own vine and of his own fig tree and drink the water of his own cistern until I come and depart you to a country like your own, a land of corn and good wine, a land of bread and of vineyards.

¹⁸ Do not let Hezekiah delude you by saying: Yahweh will save you. Has any god of any nation saved his country from the power of the king of Assyria?

¹⁹ Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Where are the gods of the land of Samaria? Did they save Samaria from me?

²⁰ Tell me which of all the gods of these countries have saved their countries from my hands, for Yahweh to be able to save Jerusalem?”

²¹ They kept silence and said nothing in reply, since this was the king’s order: ‘Do not answer him’ he had said.

²² The master of the palace, Eliakim son of Hilkiah, Shebna the secretary and the herald Joah son of Asaph, with their garments torn, went to Hezekiah and reported what the cupbearer-in-chief had said.