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          DASV: Isaiah 36    

1 In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of
Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and
captured them.
2 The king of Assyria sent his chief commander from Lachish
to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah with a large army. He stood by
the conduit of the upper pool in the highway to the Clothes
Washer's field.
3 Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace,
Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder came
out to him.

4 Then Rabshakeh said to them, "Tell Hezekiah, This is what the
great king, the king of Assyria says, 'What is the basis of your
confidence?
5 I tell you, your strategy and strength for the war are mere
empty words. Now in whom are you trusting, that you have
rebelled against me?
6 Look, you are trusting in Egypt that staff is a broken reed,
if someone leans on it, it will pierce his hand. So is Pharaoh
king of Egypt to all who trust in him.
7 But if you tell me, "We trust in the LORD our God." Isn't he
the one, whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has removed,
and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, 'You must worship before
this altar?'
8 Now therefore, make a bet with my master the king of Assyria.
I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able to find
enough riders to put on them.
9 How then can you repulse even one captain of the least of my
master's servants, and put your trust on Egypt for chariots and
horsemen?
10 In fact, did I come up against this land to destroy it without
the LORD? The LORD told me, 'Go up against this land, and destroy
it.'"

11 Then Eliakim, Shebna and Joah said to the Assyrian commander,
"Please speak, to your servants in the Aramaic language, for we
understand it. Do not speak to us in the Judean language, in the
ears of the people who are on the wall."
12 But the Assyrian commander replied, "Has my master sent me
to your master, and to you, to speak these words? Has he not sent
me to those on the wall, who, like you, will end up eating their
own excrement and drinking their own urine?"

13 Then the Assyrian commander stood, and cried with a loud voice
in the Judean language, "Hear the words of the great king, the
king of Assyria.
14 This is what the king says, 'Don't let Hezekiah deceive you;
for he will not be able to rescue you.'
15 Do not let Hezekiah trick you into trusting in the LORD, saying,
'The LORD will surely rescue us. This city will not fall into the
hand of the king of Assyria.'
16 Do not listen to Hezekiah. For this is what the king of Assyria
says, 'Make peace with me and come out to me. Then everyone will
eat from his own vine, and everyone from his own fig tree, and
everyone will drink waters from 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 Do not let Hezekiah mislead you, saying, "The LORD will rescue
us." Has any of the gods of the nations been able to deliver his
land from the hand of the king of Assyria?
19 Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of
Sepharvaim? Did any of them deliver Samaria out of my hand?
20 Who among all the gods of these countries, were able to deliver
their country out of my hand? So how can the LORD deliver
Jerusalem out of my hand?'"

21 But they remained silent, and did not answer him a word, because
the king had commanded, "Do not answer him."
22 Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah who was in charge of the palace,
Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder came
to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him the words
of Assyrian commander.

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