18. They called for the king, but Eliakim, son of Hilkiah, the master of the palace, came out, along with Shebnah the scribe and the chancellor Joah, son of Asaph.
19. The commander said to them, “Tell Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: On what do you base this trust of yours?
20. Do you think mere words substitute for strategy and might in war? In whom, then, do you place your trust, that you rebel against me?
21. Do you trust in Egypt, that broken reed of a staff, which pierces the hand of anyone who leans on it? That is what Pharaoh, king of Egypt, is to all who trust in him.
22. Or do you people say to me, “It is in the Lord our God we trust!”? Is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, commanding Judah and Jerusalem, “Worship before this altar in Jerusalem”?’
23. “Now, make a wager with my lord, the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses if you are able to put riders on them.
24. How then can you turn back even a captain, one of the least servants of my lord, trusting, as you do, in Egypt for chariots and horses?
25. Did I come up to destroy this place without the Lord? The Lord himself said to me: Go up and destroy that land!”
26. Then Eliakim, son of Hilkiah, and Shebnah and Joah said to the commander: “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic; we understand it. Do not speak to us in the language of Judah within earshot of the people who are on the wall.”