20. Perhaps, you have taken counsel, so that you would prepare yourself for battle. In whom do you trust, so that you would dare to rebel?
21. Do you hope in Egypt, that staff of a broken reed, which, if a man would lean upon it, breaking, it would pierce his hand? Such is Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, to all who would trust in him.
22. But if you say to me: 'We have faith in the Lord, our God.' Is it not he, whose high places and altars Hezekiah has taken away? And did he not instruct Judah and Jerusalem: 'You shall adore before this altar in Jerusalem?'
23. Now therefore, cross over to my lord, the king of the Assyrians, and I will give to you two thousand horses, and we will see if you even have enough riders for them.
24. So how can you resist one prince from the least of my lord's servants? Do you have faith in Egypt because of the chariots and horsemen?
25. Is it not by the will of the Lord that I have chosen to ascend to this place, so that I may destroy it? The Lord said to me: 'Ascend to this land, and destroy it.' "
26. Then Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, and Shebnah, and Joah, said to Rabshakeh: "We beseech you, that you may speak to us, your servants, in Syriac. For we understand that language to some extent. And do not speak to us in the Jews' language, in the hearing of the people, who are upon the wall."
27. And Rabshakeh responded to them, saying: "Has my lord sent me to your lord and to you, so that I may speak these words, and not instead to the men who are sitting upon the wall, so that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own urine with you?"
28. And so, Rabshakeh stood up, and he exclaimed in a great voice, in the Jews' language, and he said: "Listen to the words of the great king, the king of the Assyrians.