1
And it came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Chizqiyahu that Sancheriv king of Ashshur came up against all the fortified cities of Yehudah and captured them.
2
And the king of Ashshur sent Ravshaqeh from Lakhish to Yerushalayim, to King Chizqiyahu, with a heavy host. And he stood by the channel of the upper pool, on the highway of the launderer’s field.
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And Elyaqim son of Chilqiyahu, who was over the House, and Shevna the scribe, and Yoach son of Asaf, the recorder, came out to him.
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And Ravshaqeh said to them: “Please say to Chizqiyahu: ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Ashshur: What is this trust in which you trust?
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I say: only a word of the lips is counsel and strength for war. Now upon whom do you trust, that you have rebelled against me?
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See, you trust upon the staff of this crushed reed, upon Mitzrayim, which enters the palm of any ish who leans upon it and pierces it. Thus is Pharaoh king of Mitzrayim to all who trust upon him.
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But if you say to me, “We trust in Yahuah our Elohim,” is He not the one whose high places and altars Chizqiyahu removed, saying to Yehudah and Yerushalayim, “Before this altar you shall bow yourselves”?
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And now, please exchange pledges with my master, the king of Ashshur. I shall give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to place riders upon them.
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How then can you turn away the face of one governor among the least of my master’s servants, while you trust upon Mitzrayim for chariots and horsemen?
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And now, have I come up apart from Yahuah against this land to destroy it? Yahuah said to me, “Go up against this land and destroy it.”’”
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Then Elyaqim and Shevna and Yoach said to Ravshaqeh: “Please speak to your servants in Aramit, for we understand it. Do not speak to us in the tongue of Yehudah in the ears of the people who are upon the wall.”
12
But Ravshaqeh said: “Has my master sent me to speak these words to your master and to you? Is it not to the men sitting upon the wall, who shall eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?”
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Then Ravshaqeh stood and called with a great voice in the tongue of Yehudah, and said: “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Ashshur.
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Thus says the king: ‘Do not let Chizqiyahu deceive you, for he is not able to deliver you.
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And do not let Chizqiyahu cause you to trust in Yahuah, saying, “Delivering, Yahuah shall surely deliver us. This city shall not be given into the hand of the king of Ashshur.”
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Do not listen to Chizqiyahu.’ For thus says the king of Ashshur: ‘Make a blessing with me and come out to me. Each ish shall eat from his vine and each ish from his fig tree, and each ish shall drink the waters of his cistern,
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until I come and take you to a land like your own land—a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards.
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Let not Chizqiyahu lead you astray, saying, “Yahuah shall deliver us.” Have the elohim of the nations delivered, each one, his land from the hand of the king of Ashshur?
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Where are the elohim of Chamat and Arpad? Where are the elohim of Sefarvayim? And have they delivered Shomron from my hand?
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Who among all the elohim of these lands has delivered his land from my hand, that Yahuah should deliver Yerushalayim from my hand?’”
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But they were silent and did not answer him a word, for the commandment of the king was, saying, “Do not answer him.”
22
Then Elyaqim son of Chilqiyahu, who was over the House, and Shevna the scribe, and Yoach son of Asaf, the recorder, came to Chizqiyahu with garments torn and declared to him the words of Ravshaqeh.