8. For with him is an arm of flesh: with us the Lord our God, who is our helper, and fighteth for us. And the people were encouraged with these words of Ezechias king of Juda.
9. After this, Sennacherib king of the Assyrians sent his servants to Jerusalem, (for he with all his army was besieging Lachis,) to Ezechias king of Juda, and to all the people that were in the city, saying:
10. Thus saith Sennacherib king of the Assyrians: In whom do you trust, that you sit still besieged in Jerusalem?
11. Doth not Ezechias deceive you, to give you up to die by hunger and thirst, affirming that the Lord your God shall deliver you from the hand of the king of the Assyrians?
12. Is it not this same Ezechias, that hath destroyed his high places, and his altars, and commanded Juda and Jerusalem, saying: You shall worship before one altar, and upon it you shall burn incense?
13. Know you not what I and my fathers have done to all the people of the lands? have the gods of any nations and lands been able to deliver their country out of my hand?
14. Who is there among all the gods of the nations, which my fathers have destroyed, that could deliver his people out of my hand, that your God should be able to deliver you out of this hand?
15. Therefore let not Ezechias deceive you, nor delude you with a vain persuasion, and do not believe him. For if no god of all the nations and kingdoms, could deliver his people out of my hand, and out of the hand of my fathers, consequently neither shall your God be able to deliver you out of my hand.
16. And many other things did his servants speak against the Lord God, and against Ezechias his servant.
17. He wrote also letters full of blasphemy against the Lord the God of Israel, and he spoke against him: As the gods of other nations could not deliver their people out of my hand, so neither can the God of Ezechias deliver his people out of this hand.