1Now it happened in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, that Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah, and took them.
2The king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to king Hezekiah with a great army. He stood by the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller`s field.
3Then came forth to him Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder.
4Rabshakeh said to them, Say you now to Hezekiah, Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, What confidence is this in which you trust?
5I say, [your] counsel and strength for the war are but vain words: now on whom do you trust, that you have rebelled against me?
6Behold, you trust on the staff of this bruised reed, even on Egypt, whereon if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it: so is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust on him.
7But if you tell me, We trust in Yahweh our God: isn`t that he, whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, You shall worship before this altar?