5. I say, you speak (but they are but vain words), I have counsel and strength for war: now on whom do you trust, that you rebel against me?
6. Lo, you trust in the staff of this broken reed, on Egypt; on which if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it: so is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all that trust in him.
7. But if you say to me, We trust in the LORD our God: is it not he, whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and said to Judah and to Jerusalem, you shall worship before this altar?
8. Now therefore give pledges, I urge you, to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you be able on your part to set riders upon them.
9. How then will you turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master's servants, and put your trust on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?
10. And am I now come up without the LORD against this land to destroy it? the LORD said unto me, Go up against this land, and destroy it.
11. Then said Eliakim and Shebna and Joah unto Rabshakeh, Speak, I pray you, unto your servants in the Aramiac language; for we understand it; and speak not to us in the Jews' language, in the ears of the people that are on the wall.
12. But Rabshakeh said, Has my master sent me to your master and to you to speak these words? has he not sent me to the men that sit upon the wall, that they may eat and drink their own waste with you?