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19The field commander said to them, “Tell Hezekiah:
“‘This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: On what are you basing this confidence of yours?20You say you have strategy and military strength—but you speak only empty words. On whom are you depending, that you rebel against me?21Look now, you are depending on Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff, which pierces a man's hand and wounds him if he leans on it! Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who depend on him.22And if you say to me, “We are depending on the LORD our God”—isn't he the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, “You must worship before this altar in Jerusalem”?

23“‘Come now, make a bargain with my master, the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses—if you can put riders on them!24How can you repulse one officer of the least of my master's officials, even though you are depending on Egypt for chariots and horsemenOr charioteers?25Furthermore, have I come to attack and destroy this place without word from the LORD? The LORD himself told me to march against this country and destroy it.’”

26Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, and Shebna and Joah said to the field commander, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it. Don't speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people on the wall.”

27But the commander replied, “Was it only to your master and you that my master sent me to say these things, and not to the men sitting on the wall—who, like you, will have to eat their own filth and drink their own urine?”

28Then the commander stood and called out in Hebrew: “Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria!

37Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went to Hezekiah, with their clothes torn, and told him what the field commander had said.