Isaiah 36
Sennacherib Invades Judah
36:1 In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign,1 King Sennacherib of Assyria marched up against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. 36:2 The king of Assyria sent his chief adviser2 from Lachish to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem,3 along with a large army. The chief adviser4 stood at the conduit of the upper pool which is located on the road to the field where they wash and dry cloth.5 36:3 Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace supervisor, accompanied by Shebna the scribe and Joah son of Asaph, the secretary, went out to meet him.
36:4 The chief adviser said to them, “Tell Hezekiah: ‘This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: “What is your source of confidence?6
36:5 Your claim to have a strategy and military strength is just empty talk.7 In whom are you trusting, that you would dare to rebel against me?
36:6 Look, you must be trusting in Egypt, that splintered reed staff. If someone leans on it for support, it punctures his hand and wounds him. That is what Pharaoh king of Egypt does to all who trust in him!
36:7 Perhaps you will tell me, ‘We are trusting in the
36:11 Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the chief adviser, “Speak to your servants in Aramaic,10 for we understand it. Don’t speak with us in the Judahite dialect11 in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.” 36:12 But the chief adviser said, “My master did not send me to speak these words only to your master and to you.12 His message is also for the men who sit on the wall, for they will eat their own excrement and drink their own urine along with you!”13
36:13 The chief adviser then stood there and called out loudly in the Judahite dialect,14 “Listen to the message of the great king, the king of Assyria.
36:14 This is what the king says: ‘Don’t let Hezekiah mislead you, for he is not able to rescue you!
36:15 Don’t let Hezekiah talk you into trusting in the