3. Then came out to meet him Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was over the [royal] household, and Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, the recording historian.
4. And the Rabshakeh said to them, Say to Hezekiah, Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: What reason for confidence is this in which you trust?
5. Do you suppose that mere words of the lips can pass for warlike counsel and strength? Now in whom do you trust and on whom do you rely, that you rebel against me? [II Kings 18:7.]
6. Behold, you trust in the staff of this bruised and broken reed, Egypt, which will pierce the hand of any man who leans on it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust and rely on him.
7. But if you say to me, We trust in and rely on the Lord our God–is it not He Whose high places and Whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, You shall worship before this altar? [II Kings 18:4, 5.]
8. Now therefore, I pray you, make a wager with my master the king of Assyria and give him pledges, and I will give you two thousand horses–if you are able on your part to put riders on them.
9. How then can you repulse the attack of a single captain of the least of my master's servants, when you put your reliance on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?
10. Moreover, is it without the Lord that I have now come up 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, We pray you, speak to your servants in the Aramaic or Syrian language, for we understand it; and do not speak to us in the language of the Jews in the hearing of the people on the wall.
12. But the Rabshakeh said, Has my master sent me to speak these words only to your master and to you? Has he not sent me to the men sitting on the wall, who are doomed with you to eat their own dung and drink their own urine?