The envoy challenges Judah’s trust

4Then the Rabshakeh said to them, “Please say to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: What is this confidence that you have trusted in?’”

5You say—but they are only words of the lips—‘There is counsel and strength for war.’ Now in whom have you trusted, that you have rebelled against me?

6Look, you are trusting in Egypt, that broken reed of a staff, which, if a man leans on it, goes into his hand and pierces it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him.

7But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the LORD our God,’ is it not he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall bow down before this altar’?”

8Now then, please make a wager with my master, the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able to provide riders for them.

9How then can you repulse a single captain of the least of my master's servants, when you trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen?

10And now, was it apart from Yahweh that I came up against this land to destroy it? Yahweh said to me, ‘Go up against this land and destroy it.’