14. So Hezekiah king of Judah sent word to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have done wrong. Withdraw from me. What you impose on me I will bear.” So the king of Assyria imposed on Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.
15. Then Hezekiah gave all of the silver found in the temple of Yahweh and in the storerooms of the house of the king.
16. At that time, Hezekiah cut off the doors of the temple of Yahweh and the doorposts which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and he gave them to the king of Assyria.
17. So the king of Assyria sent the commander in chief, the chief eunuch, and the chief advisor from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem with a heavy army. They went up and came to Jerusalem, then they went up and came and stood at the aqueduct of the upper pool which is on the main road of the washer’s field.
18. Then they called to the king, so Eliakim the son of Hilkiah who was over the palace, Shebna the secretary, and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder, came out to them.
19. Then the chief advisor said to them, “Please say to Hezekiah: ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: “What is this confidence that you trust?
20. You think only a word of lips, ‘I have advice and power for the war.’ Now, on whom do you trust that you have rebelled against me?
21. Now, look! You rely on the staff of this broken reed, on Egypt, which when a man leans on it, it goes into his hand and pierces it! So is Pharaoh the king of Egypt for all who are trusting on him!
22. But if you say to me, ‘On Yahweh our God we trust,’ is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed, and he had said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘In the presence of this altar you shall bow down only in Jerusalem?’
23. So then, please make a wager with my lord, with the king of Assyria, and I will give to you a thousand horses if you are able on your part to put riders on them.
24. How can you repulse a single captain among the least of the servants of my master? Yet you rely for yourself on Egypt for chariots and horsemen!
25. Have I now come up against this place without Yahweh to destroy it? Yahweh has said to me, ‘Go up against this land and destroy it!’ ” ’ ”