12
because they had not hearkened unto the voice of the LORD their God, but had broken his covenant
and all that Moses, the slave of the LORD, commanded and would not hear
them nor do
them.
13
Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came up against all the fenced cities of Judah and took them.
14
And Hezekiah, king of Judah, sent unto the king of Assyria to Lachish, saying, I have sinned; return from me; that which thou puttest on me I will bear. Then the king of Assyria appointed unto Hezekiah, king of Judah, three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.
15
And Hezekiah gave
him all the silver that was found in the house of the LORD and in the treasury of the king’s house.
16
At that time Hezekiah cut off
the gold from the doors of the temple of the LORD and
from the hinges which Hezekiah, king of Judah, had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria.
17
And the king of Assyria sent Tartan and Rabsaris and Rabshakeh from Lachish to King Hezekiah with a great host against Jerusalem. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. And when they were come up, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which
is in the highway of the washer’s field.
18
And they called the king, and Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, who
was over the household, and Shebna, the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the writer of chronicles went out to them.
19
And Rabshakeh said unto them, Speak ye now to Hezekiah, Thus saith the great king, the king of Assyria, What confidence
is this in which thou dost trust?
20
Thou sayest (but
they are but vain words),
I have counsel and strength for the war. Now on whom dost thou trust, that thou hast rebelled against me?
21
Now, behold, thou dost trust upon the staff of this bruised reed,
even upon Egypt, on which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it; so
is Pharaoh, king of Egypt unto all that trust in him.
22
But if ye say unto me, We trust in the LORD our God: is he not the one whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away and has said to Judah and Jerusalem, Ye shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem?