1 In the fourteenth year of the reign of Hezekiah, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, attacked and conquered all the fortified towns of Judah.* 2 The king of Assyria sent his army general,† along with a large army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. He stopped by the aqueduct of the upper pool, on the road to the Launderer's Field. 3 Eliakim, son of Hilkiah, the palace manager, Shebnah the scribe, and Joah, son of Asaph, the record-keeper, went out to speak with him.

4 The Assyrian army general said to them, “Tell Hezekiah this is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: What are you trusting in that gives you such confidence? 5 You say you have a strategy and are ready for war, but these are empty words. Who are you relying on, now that you have rebelled against me? 6 Now look! You're trusting in Egypt, a walking stick that's like a broken reed that will cut the hand of anyone leaning on it. That's what Pharaoh, king of Egypt, is like to everyone who trusts in him. 7 If you tell me, ‘We're trusting in the Lord our God,’ well didn't Hezekiah remove his high places and his altars, telling Judah and Jerusalem: ‘You have to worship at this altar in Jerusalem’? 8 Why don't you accept a challenge from my master, the king of Assyria? He says, I'll give you two thousand horses, if you can find enough riders for them! 9 How could you defeat even a single officer in charge of the weakest of my master's men when you're trusting in Egypt for chariots and horsemen? 10 More than that—would I have come to attack this place without the Lord's encouragement? It was the Lord himself who told me, ‘Go and attack this land and destroy it.’ ”

11 Eliakim, Shebnah, and Joah, said to the army general, “Please speak to us, your servants, in Aramaic, for we understand it. Don't speak to us in Hebrew while the people on the wall are listening.”

12 But the army general replied, “Did my master only send me to say these things to your master and to you, and not to the people sitting on the wall? They too, just like you, are going to have to eat their own excrement and drink their own urine!”

13 Then the army general shouted out in Hebrew, “Listen to this from the great king, the king of Assyria! 14 This is what the king says: Don't let Hezekiah trick you! He can't save you! 15 Don't believe Hezekiah when he tells you to trust in the Lord, saying, ‘I'm certain the Lord will save us. This city will never fall into the hands of the king of Assyria.’ 16 Don't listen to Hezekiah. This is what the king says: Make a peace treaty with me and surrender to me. That way everyone will eat from their own vine and their own fig tree, and drink water from their own well! 17 I will come and take you to a land that's like your own, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards. 18 But don't let Hezekiah trick you when he says, ‘The Lord will deliver us.’ Have any of the gods of any nation ever saved their land from the power of the king of Assyria? 19 Where were the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where were the gods of Sepharvaim? Were they able to save Samaria from me? 20 Which one of all the gods of these countries has saved their land from me? How then could the Lord save Jerusalem from me?”

21 But the people remained silent and didn't say anything, for Hezekiah had given the order, “Don't answer him.”

22 Then Eliakim, son of Hilkiah, the palace manager, Shebna the scribe, and Joah, son of Asaph, the record-keeper, went to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and they told him what the Assyrian army general had said.