21. Behold, you are relying on Egypt, that broken reed of a staff; if a man leans on it, it will pierce his hand. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust and rely on him.
22. But if you tell me, We trust in and rely on the Lord our God, is it not He Whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem?
23. So now, make a wager and give pledges to my lord the king of Assyria: I will deliver you 2,000 horses–if you can on your part put riders on them.
24. How then can you beat back one captain among the least of my master's servants, when your trust is put in Egypt for chariots and horsemen?
25. Have I come up without the Lord against this place to destroy it? The Lord said to me, Go up against this land and destroy it.
26. Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah and Shebna and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, We pray you, speak to your servants in the Aramaic (Syrian) language, for we understand it; and do not speak to us in the Jews' language in the hearing of the people on the wall.
27. But the Rabshakeh said to them, Has my master sent me to your master and you only to say these things? Has he not sent me to the men who sit on the wall [whom Hezekiah has doomed to be forced] to eat their own dung and drink their own urine along with you?
28. Then the Rabshakeh stood and cried with a loud voice in the Jews' language, Hear the word of the great king of Assyria!
29. Thus says the king: Let not Hezekiah deceive you. For he will not be able to deliver you out of my hand.
30. Nor let Hezekiah make you trust in and rely on the Lord, saying, The Lord will surely deliver us, and this city will not be given into the hand of Assyria's king.
31. Hearken not to Hezekiah, for thus says the king of Assyria: Make your peace with me and come out to me, and eat every man from his own vine and fig tree and drink every man the waters of his own cistern,
32. Until I come and take you away to a land like your own, a land of grain and vintage fruit, of bread and vineyards, of olive trees and honey, that you may live and not die. Do not listen to Hezekiah when he urges you, saying, The Lord will deliver us.
33. Has any one of the gods of the nations ever delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?