Immerse: Prophets - Flipbook - Page 129
36:7-21
I saiah
117
will be like a reed that splinters beneath your weight and pierces your
hand. Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, is completely unreliable!
“But perhaps you will say to me, ‘We are trusting in the Lord our
God!’ But isn’t he the one who was insulted by Hezekiah? Didn’t
Hezekiah tear down his shrines and altars and make everyone in Judah
and Jerusalem worship only at the altar here in Jerusalem?
“I’ll tell you what! Strike a bargain with my master, the king of
Assyria. I will give you 2,000 horses if you can find that many men to
ride on them! With your tiny army, how can you think of challenging
even the weakest contingent of my master’s troops, even with the
help of Egypt’s chariots and charioteers? What’s more, do you think
we have invaded your land without the Lord’s direction? The Lord
himself told us, ‘Attack this land and destroy it!’”
Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the Assyrian chief of staff,
“Please speak to us in Aramaic, for we understand it well. Don’t speak in
Hebrew, for the people on the wall will hear.”
But Sennacherib’s chief of staff replied, “Do you think my master sent
this message only to you and your master? He wants all the people to hear
it, for when we put this city under siege, they will suffer along with you.
They will be so hungry and thirsty that they will eat their own dung and
drink their own urine.”
Then the chief of staff stood and shouted in Hebrew to the people on
the wall, “Listen to this message from the great king of Assyria! This is
what the king says: Don’t let Hezekiah deceive you. He will never be able
to rescue you. Don’t let him fool you into trusting in the Lord by saying,
‘The Lord will surely rescue us. This city will never fall into the hands of
the Assyrian king!’
“Don’t listen to Hezekiah! These are the terms the king of Assyria is of
fering: Make peace with me—open the gates and come out. Then each of
you can continue eating from your own grapevine and fig tree and drink
ing from your own well. Then I will arrange to take you to another land like
this one—a land of grain and new wine, bread and vineyards.
“Don’t let Hezekiah mislead you by saying, ‘The Lord will rescue us!’
Have the gods of any other nations ever saved their people from the king
of Assyria? What happened to the gods of Hamath and Arpad? And what
about the gods of Sepharvaim? Did any god rescue Samaria from my
power? What god of any nation has ever been able to save its people from
my power? So what makes you think that the Lord can rescue Jerusalem
from me?”
But the people were silent and did not utter a word because Hezekiah
had commanded them, “Do not answer him.”
