5 I say, Your counsel and strength for war are only empty words. Now on whom do you rely that you rebel against me?
6 You rely on the staff of this broken reed, on Egypt, on which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who rely on him.
7 But if you 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, ‘You shall worship before this altar’?
8 “Now therefore, come make a bargain with my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them.
9 How then will you turn away one captain of the least of my master’s servants and rely on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?
10 Have I now come up without the approval of the Lord against this land to destroy it? The Lord said to me, Go up against this land, and destroy it.”
11 Then Eliakim and Shebna and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, “Speak now to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. And do not speak to us in Hebrew in the ears of the people who are on the wall.”