2. And the sovereign of Ashshur sent the Raḇshaqĕh with a great army from Laḵish to Sovereign Ḥizqiyahu at Yerushalayim. And he stood by the channel of the upper pool, on the highway to the Launderer’s Field.
3. And there came to him Elyaqim son of Ḥilqiyahu, who was over the household, and Sheḇnah the scribe, and Yo’aḥ son of Asaph, the recorder.
4. The Raḇshaqĕh then said to them, “Please say to Ḥizqiyahu, ‘Thus said the great sovereign, the sovereign of Ashshur, “What trust is this in which you trust?
5. “I say: You speak of having counsel and strength for battle, but they are vain words. Now in whom do you trust, that you have rebelled against me?
6. “Look! You are trusting in the staff of this broken reed, Mitsrayim, on which if a man leans, it shall go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh the sovereign of Mitsrayim to all who trust in him.
7. “But if you say to me, ‘We trust in יהוה our Elohim,’ is it not He whose high places and whose altars Ḥizqiyahu has taken away, and has said to Yehuḏah and to Yerushalayim, ‘Bow yourselves before this altar’?
8. “And now, I urge you, please give a pledge to my master the sovereign of Ashshur, and I give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to put riders on them!
9. “And how do you refuse one officer of the least of my master’s servants, and put your trust in Mitsrayim for chariots and horsemen?
10. “And now, have I come up without יהוה against this land to destroy it? יהוה said to me, ‘Go up against this land, and destroy it.’ ”
11. And Elyaqim, Sheḇnah, and Yo’aḥ said to the Raḇshaqĕh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. And do not speak to us in the language of Yehuḏah in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”
12. But the Raḇshaqĕh said, “Has my master sent me to your master and to you to speak these words, and not to the men who sit on the wall, to eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?”