1 Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah that Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the defenced cities of Judah and took them.
2 And the king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem unto king Hezekiah with a great army. And he camped by the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the washer’s field.
3 Then came forth unto him Eliakim, Hilkiah’s son, who was over the house, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, Asaph’s son, the writer of chronicles.
4 And Rabshakeh said unto them, Say ye now to Hezekiah, Thus saith the great king, the king of Assyria, What confidence is this in which thou dost trust?
5 I say, sayest thou, (but they are but vain words) I have counsel and strength for war: now on whom dost thou trust that thou dost rebel against me?
6 Behold, thou dost trust in the staff of this broken reed, on Egypt upon which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it, so is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all that trust in him.
7 But if thou say to me, We trust in the Lord our God; is it not he, whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and said to Judah and to Jerusalem, Ye shall worship before this altar?