¹ In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah`s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. <sup>2</sup> Then the king of Assyria sent his field commander with a large army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. When the commander stopped at the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Launderer`s Field, ³ Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went out to him. ⁴ 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? ⁵ You say you have counsel and might for war—but you speak only empty words. On whom are you depending, that you rebel against me? ⁶ Look, I know you are depending on Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff, which pierces the hand of anyone who leans on it! Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who depend on him. ⁷ But if you say to me, “We are depending on the Lord our God”—isn`t he the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, “You must worship before this altar”? ⁸ “‘Come now, make a bargain with my master, the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses—if you can put riders on them!