Isaiah 36

Assyria Threatens Jerusalem

1 In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s rule, King Sennacherib of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.

2 Then the king of Assyria sent his top commander from Lachish to Jerusalem, to deliver a message to King Hezekiah. He stopped at the upper pool, near the road to the Washer’s Field.

3 Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace manager, came out to meet him, along with Shebna the secretary and Joah son of Asaph the recorder.

The Assyrian’s Arrogance

4 The commander told them, “Tell Hezekiah this: The great king, the king of Assyria, says, what makes you so confident?”

5 “You got plans and words, but no real power. Who are you trusting that makes you rebel against me?”

6 “Look, you trusting in Egypt, that weak, broken staff that will pierce your hand if you lean on it. That is what happens to everyone who depends on Pharaoh, king of Egypt.”

7 “But if you say, ‘We trust in the Lord our God,’ is not that the same God whose high places and altars Hezekiah tore down, saying everybody must worship at one altar in Jerusalem?”

8 “So come on, make a deal with my master, the king of Assyria. I will give you two thousand horses if you can even find riders to put on them.”

9 “How can you fight back against the weakest of my master’s officers, when you must depend on Egypt for chariots and riders?”

10 “Do you really think I came up against this land without the Lord’s permission, The Lord Himself told me, ‘Go attack this land and destroy it.’”

Jerusalem’s Officials Ask for Silence

11 Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the commander, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, we understand that. Do not speak to us in Hebrew where everyone on the wall can hear.”

12 But the commander said, “You think my master sent me just to talk to your king and not the people sitting on the wall, the ones who is going to end up eating their own waste and drinking their own urine when the siege hits?”

The Assyrian Tries to Shake Their Faith

13 Then the commander stood up and shouted in Hebrew so everybody could hear,

14 “This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: Do not let Hezekiah fool you! He cannot save you.”

15 “Do not let him trick you into trusting the Lord when he says, ‘The Lord will save us, this city will not fall to the king of Assyria.’”

16 “Do not listen to Hezekiah. The king of Assyria says, make peace with me and come out. Then each of you can eat from your own vine, your own fig tree, and drink from your own well.”

17 “Then later I will come and take you to a land just like yours, a land of grain and wine, bread and vineyards.”

18 “Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, saying, ‘The Lord will deliver us.’ Has any god of any nation ever saved his land from the king of Assyria?”

19 “Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad, Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Did they save Samaria from my hand?”

20 “Who among all the gods of these lands has saved their country from me, So how is the Lord is going to save Jerusalem?”

The People Stay Silent

21 But the people kept quiet and did not say a word, because the king commanded, “Do not answer him.”

22 Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, Shebna, and Joah went to King Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him what the Assyrian commander said.