¹And it came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah that Sennacherib king of Assyria went up against all the fortified cities of Judah and seized them. ²And the king of Assyria sent the chief butler from Lachish to Jerusalem, to King Hezekiah, with a sizeable army, and they stood at the conduit at the upper pool, which is at the aqueduct to the washer's site. ³And Eliakim, Hilkiah's son, who was in charge of the house, came out to him, as did Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the state secretary. ⁴And the chief butler said to them, “Kindly say to Hezekiah, ‘This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: «What is this object of trust in which you trust? ⁵I quote you – but it is vain talk – ‹I have counsel and wherewithal for war.› Now in whom have you trusted? For you have rebelled against me. ⁶Look, you have put trust in this buckled reed staff – in Egypt – and if a man leans on it, it slips into his hand and pierces it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him. ⁷And if you say to me, ‹We trust in the Lord our God›, is that not he whose raised sites and whose altars Hezekiah removed, when he said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‹It is before this altar that you will worship›?» ’ ⁸So now, please, enter into a contract with my lord the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses if you are able to provide yourself with riders on them. ⁹And how can you decline the offer of a governor among the least of my lord's servants, and entrust yourself to Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? ¹⁰Now did I come up without the Lord against this land, to bring it to ruin? The Lord said to me, ‘Go up against this land and bring it to ruin.’ ” ¹¹Then Eliakim and Shebna and Joah said to the chief butler, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it, and do not speak to us in Judaean, it being intelligible to the people who are on the wall.” ¹²Then the chief butler said, “Is it to your master and to you that my lord has sent me to speak these words? Is it not to the people sitting on the wall, that they will have to eat their excrement and drink their urine with you?” ¹³Then the chief butler stood up and called out in a loud voice in Judaean and said, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria. ¹⁴This is what the king says: ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you. ¹⁵And do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the Lord, saying, «The Lord will certainly deliver us, and this city will not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.» ’ ¹⁶Do not listen to Hezekiah, for this is what the king of Assyria says: ‘Make things a blessing in partnership with me, and come out to me, then let each man eat from his vine, and each man from his fig tree, and let each man drink water from his cistern, ¹⁷until I come and take you to a land like your own land – a land of corn and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards. ¹⁸And don't let Hezekiah entice you, saying, «The Lord will deliver us.» Have the gods of the nations delivered anyone's land from the grip of the king of Assyria? ¹⁹Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? And have they, then, delivered Samaria from my grip? ²⁰Who are there among all the gods of these countries who have delivered their country from my grip? So will the Lord deliver Jerusalem from my grip?’ ” ²¹And they fell silent, and they did not answer him a word, for the king's commandment was, “Do not answer him.” ²²Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the state secretary, went to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and they told him the chief butler's words.