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2 Kings 18:23

Verse 23 of 37. The 18th of 25 chapters in 2 Kings, in History.

19Rabshakeh said to them, “Say now to Hezekiah, ‘The great king, the king of Assyria, says, “What confidence is this in which you trust?

20You say (but they are but vain words), ‘There is counsel and strength for war.’ Now on whom do you trust, that you have rebelled against me?

21Now, behold, you trust in the staff of this bruised reed, even in Egypt. If a man leans on it, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust on him.

22But if you tell me, ‘We trust in the LORD our God,’ isn’t that he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem’?

23Now therefore, please give pledges to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses if you are able on your part to set riders on them.

24How then can you turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master’s servants, and put your trust on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?

25Have I now come up without the LORD against this place to destroy it? The LORD said to me, ‘Go up against this land, and destroy it.’”’”

26Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, Shebnah, and Joah, said to Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in the Syrian language, for we understand it. Don’t speak with us in the Jews’ language, in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”

27But Rabshakeh said to them, “Has my master sent me to your master and to you, to speak these words? Hasn’t he sent me to the men who sit on the wall, to eat their own dung, and to drink their own urine with you?”

Read 2 Kings 18

World English Bible. Public domain. Set as prose throughout, including the poetry, because the text is published to us without its lines.