And Rabshakeh said to them,“ Say now to Hezekiah,‘ This is what the great king, the king of Assyria says:“ What is this confidence that you have?

拉伯沙基对他们说：“你们去告诉希西家说，亚述大王如此说：‘你所倚靠的有什么可仗赖的呢？

将军对他们说：“你们去告诉希西家，大王亚述王如此说：‘你倚赖什么，让你如此自信满满？

将军对他们说：“你们去告诉希西家，大王亚述王如此说：‘你倚赖什么，让你如此自信满满？

亚述的将军对他们说：“你们去告诉希西迦，伟大的亚述王说，‘你凭什么这样自信呢？

拉伯沙基对他们说：“你们去对希西家说：‘亚述大王这样说：你所倚靠的算得是什么倚靠呢？

将军对他们说：“请你们告诉希西加：亚述大王如此说‘你所依靠的算什么依靠？

拉伯沙基對他們說：「你們去告訴希西家說，亞述大王如此說：『你所倚靠的有甚麼可仗賴的呢？

將軍對他們說：「你們去告訴希西家，大王亞述王如此說：『你倚賴甚麼，讓你如此自信滿滿？

將軍對他們說：「你們去告訴希西家，大王亞述王如此說：『你倚賴甚麼，讓你如此自信滿滿？

亞述的將軍對他們說：「你們去告訴希西迦，偉大的亞述王說，『你憑什麼這樣自信呢？

拉伯沙基對他們說：“你們去對希西家說：‘亞述大王這樣說：你所倚靠的算得是甚麼倚靠呢？

參謀長對他們說：『你們去對希西家說：「大王亞述王這麼說：你所倚靠的這種倚靠心算得了甚麼？

將軍對他們說：「請你們告訴希西加：亞述大王如此說『你所依靠的算什麼依靠？

拉伯沙基謂之曰、其告希西家、大王亞述王云、爾所恃者何耶、

臘沙基曰、爾當告希西家亞述大王云、爾誰恃、

拉伯沙基謂之曰、爾曹告希西家曰、亞述大王如是云、爾何所恃耶、

The 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?

The field commander said to them,“ Give Hezekiah this message. Tell him,“‘ Sennacherib is the great king of Assyria. He says,“ Why are you putting your faith in what your king says?

And the Rabshakeh said to them,“ Say to Hezekiah,‘ Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: On what do you rest this trust of yours?

Then the Assyrian king’s chief of staff told them to give this message to Hezekiah:“ This is what the great king of Assyria says: What are you trusting in that makes you so confident?

The royal spokesman said to them,“ Tell Hezekiah: The great king, the king of Assyria, says this: What are you relying on?

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

And Rabshakeh said unto them, Say ye now to Hezekiah, Thus saith the great king, the king of Assyria, What confidence is this wherein thou trustest?

The Rabshakeh said to them,“ Tell Hezekiah: The great king, the king of Assyria, says this: What are you relying on?

And Rabshakeh said unto them, Say ye now to Hezekiah, Thus saith the great king, the king of Assyria, What confidence[ is] this wherein thou trustest?

The chief adviser said to them,“ Tell Hezekiah:‘ This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says:“ What is your source of confidence?

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

And Rabshakeh said to them,“ Say now to Hezekiah,‘ This is what the great king, the king of Assyria says:“ What is this confidence that you have?You say— but they are only empty words—‘ I have a plan and strength for the war.’ Now on whom have you relied, that you have revolted against me?Now behold, you have relied on the support of this broken reed, on Egypt; on which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it. That is how Pharaoh king of Egypt is to all who rely on him.However, if you say to me,‘ We have trusted in the Lord our God,’ is it not He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has removed, and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem,‘ You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem’?Now then, come make a wager with my master the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to put riders on them!How then can you drive back even one official of the least of my master’s servants, and rely on Egypt for chariots and horsemen?Have I now come up without the Lord’s approval against this place to destroy it? The Lord said to me,‘ Go up against this land and destroy it.’ ” ’ ”Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, Shebnah, and Joah, said to Rabshakeh,“ Speak now to your servants in Aramaic, because we understand it; and do not speak with us in Judean so that the people who are on the wall hear you.”But Rabshakeh said to them,“ Has my master sent me only to your master and to you to speak these words? Has he not also sent me to the men who sit on the wall, doomed to eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?”Then Rabshakeh stood up and shouted with a loud voice in Judean, saying,“ Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria!This is what the king says:‘ Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to save you from my hand.And do not let Hezekiah lead you to trust in the Lord by saying,“ The Lord will certainly save us, and this city will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.”Do not listen to Hezekiah, for this is what the king of Assyria says:“ Make your peace with me and come out to me, and eat, each one, from his vine and each from his fig tree, and drink, each one, the waters of his own cistern,until I come and take you to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees producing oil, and of honey, so that you will live and not die.” But do not listen to Hezekiah, because he misleads you by saying,“ The Lord will save us.”Has any of the gods of the nations actually saved his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Have they saved Samaria from my hand?Who among all the gods of the lands are there who have saved their land from my hand, that the Lord would save Jerusalem from my hand?’ ”But the people were silent and did not answer him with even a word, because it was the king’s command:“ Do not answer him.”Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the household, and Shebna the scribe and Joah the son of Asaph, the secretary, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and they reported to him the words of Rabshakeh.

The king began speaking and was saying,‘ Is this not Babylon the great, which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power and for the honor of my majesty?’

My tears have been my food day and night, While they say to me all day long,“ Where is your God?”

The people repeatedly cried out,“ The voice of a god and not of a man!”And immediately an angel of the Lord struck him because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and died.

Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before stumbling.

He trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel; and after him there was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among those who came before him.

Behold, you yourself have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands, destroying them completely. So will you be saved?Did the gods of the nations which my fathers destroyed save them: Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the sons of Eden who were in Telassar?Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, and of Hena and Ivvah?’ ”Then Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it, and he went up to the house of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord.Hezekiah prayed to the Lord, saying,

As a shattering of my bones, my adversaries taunt me, While they say to me all day long,“ Where is your God?”

For it says,“ Are not my officers all kings?Is not Calno like Carchemish, Or Hamath like Arpad, Or Samaria like Damascus?As my hand has reached to the kingdoms of the idols, Whose carved images were greater than those of Jerusalem and Samaria,Shall I not do the same to Jerusalem and her images Just as I have done to Samaria and her idols?”So it will be that when the Lord has completed all His work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, He will say,“ I will punish the fruit of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the arrogant pride of his eyes.”For he has said,“ By the power of my hand and by my wisdom I did this, Because I have understanding; And I removed the boundaries of the peoples And plundered their treasures, And like a powerful man I brought down their inhabitants,And my hand reached to the riches of the peoples like a nest, And as one gathers abandoned eggs, I gathered all the earth; And there was not one that flapped its wing, opened its beak, or chirped.”

These are grumblers, finding fault, following after their own lusts; they speak arrogantly, flattering people for the sake of gaining an advantage.

“ This is what you shall say to Hezekiah king of Judah:‘ Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you by saying,“ Jerusalem will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.”

Behold, Assyria was a cedar in Lebanon With beautiful branches and forest shade, And very high, And its top was among the clouds.The waters made it grow, the deep made it high. With its rivers it continually extended all around its planting place, And sent out its channels to all the trees of the field.Therefore its height was loftier than all the trees of the field And its boughs became many and its branches long Because of many waters as it spread them out.All the birds of the sky nested in its twigs, And under its branches all the animals of the field gave birth, And all great nations lived under its shade.So it was beautiful in its greatness, in the length of its branches; For its roots extended to many waters.The cedars in God’s garden could not match it; The junipers could not compare with its branches, And the plane trees could not match its branches. No tree in God’s garden could compare with it in its beauty.I made it beautiful with the multitude of its branches, And all the trees of Eden, which were in the garden of God, were jealous of it.‘ Therefore this is what the Lord God says:“ Because it is tall in stature and has put its top among the clouds, and its heart is haughty in its loftiness,I will hand it over to a ruler of the nations; he will thoroughly deal with it. In accordance with its wickedness I have driven it out.Foreign tyrants of the nations have cut it down and left it; on the mountains and in all the valleys its branches have fallen, and its branches have been broken in all the ravines of the land. And all the peoples of the earth have gone down from its shade and left it.All the birds of the sky will nest on its fallen trunk, and all the animals of the field will rest on its fallen branches,so that all the trees by the waters will not be exalted in their stature, nor put their tops among the clouds, nor will any of their well watered mighty ones stand straight in their height. For they have all been turned over to death, to the earth beneath, among mankind, with those who go down to the pit.”‘ This is what the Lord God says:“ On the day when it went down to Sheol I caused mourning; I closed the deep over it and held back its rivers. And its many waters were stopped up, and I made Lebanon mourn for it, and all the trees of the field wilted away on account of it.I made the nations quake from the sound of its fall when I made it go down to Sheol with those who go down to the pit; and all the well watered trees of Eden, the choicest and best of Lebanon, were comforted in the earth beneath.They also went down with it to Sheol to those who were slain by the sword; and those who were its strength lived in its shade among the nations.“ To which among the trees of Eden are you so alike in glory and greatness? Yet you will be brought down with the trees of Eden to the earth beneath; you will lie in the midst of the uncircumcised with those who were killed by the sword. This is Pharaoh and all his hordes!” ’ declares the Lord God.”

Who was there among all the gods of those nations which my fathers utterly destroyed who could save his people from my hand, that your God would be able to save you from my hand?Now then, do not let Hezekiah deceive you or mislead you like this, and do not believe him, for no god of any nation or kingdom was able to save his people from my hand or from the hand of my fathers. How much less will your God save you from my hand?’ ”His servants spoke further against the Lord God and against His servant Hezekiah.

“ Be strong and courageous, do not fear or be dismayed because of the king of Assyria nor because of all the horde that is with him; for the One with us is greater than the one with him.With him is only an arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God to help us and to fight our battles.” And the people relied on the words of Hezekiah king of Judah.After this Sennacherib king of Assyria sent his servants to Jerusalem while he was besieging Lachish with all his forces with him, against Hezekiah king of Judah and against all of Judah who were in Jerusalem, saying,“ This is what Sennacherib king of Assyria says:‘ On what are you trusting that you are staying in Jerusalem under siege?

For my enemies have spoken against me; And those who watch for my life have consulted together,Saying,“ God has abandoned him; Pursue and seize him, for there is no one to save him.”