Isaiah 36
Open in the reader1In the fourteenth year of He-Who-Is-Has-Strengthened’s reign, Sennacherib king of Successful attacked and captured all the fortified cities of Praised.
2And the king of Successful sent the Chief-Cupbearer, with a great army, from Lachish to King He-Who-Is-Has-Strengthened at Foundation-of-Peace. And he stopped by the aqueduct of the upper pool, on the road to the Launderer’s Field.
3Then God-Will-Establish son of My-Portion-Is-He-Who-Is the palace administrator, Growth the scribe, and He-Who-Is-Brother son of Gatherer the recorder, went out to him.
4The Chief-Cupbearer said to them, “Tell He-Who-Is-Has-Strengthened that this is what the great king, the king of Successful, says: What is the basis of this confidence of yours?
5You claim to have a strategy and strength for war, but these are empty words. In whom are you now trusting, that you have rebelled against me?
6Look now, you are trusting in Two-Straits, that splintered reed of a staff that will pierce the hand of anyone who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Two-Straits to all who trust in him.
7But if you say to me, ‘We trust in He-Who-Is our God,’ is He not the One whose high places and altars He-Who-Is-Has-Strengthened has removed, saying to Praised and Foundation-of-Peace, ‘You must worship before this altar’?
8Now, therefore, make a bargain with my master, the king of Successful. I will give you two thousand horses—if you can put riders on them!
9For how can you repel a single officer among the least of my master’s servants when you depend on Two-Straits for chariots and horsemen?
10So now, was it apart from He-Who-Is that I have come up against this land to destroy it? He-Who-Is Himself said to me, ‘Go up against this land and destroy it.’”
11Then God-Will-Establish, Growth, and He-Who-Is-Brother said to the Chief-Cupbearer, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it. Do not speak to us in Crosser in the hearing of the people on the wall.”
12But the Chief-Cupbearer replied, “Has my master sent me to speak these words only to you and your master, and not to the men sitting on the wall, who are destined with you to eat their own dung and drink their own urine?”
13Then the Chief-Cupbearer stood and called out loudly in Crosser: “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Successful!
14This is what the king says: Do not let He-Who-Is-Has-Strengthened deceive you, for he cannot deliver you.
15Do not let He-Who-Is-Has-Strengthened persuade you to trust in He-Who-Is when he says, ‘He-Who-Is will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Successful.’
16Do not listen to He-Who-Is-Has-Strengthened, for this is what the king of Successful says: Make peace with me and come out to me. Then every one of you will eat from his own vine and his own fig tree, and drink water from his own cistern,
17until I come and take you away to a land like your own—a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards.
18Do not let He-Who-Is-Has-Strengthened mislead you when he says, ‘He-Who-Is will deliver us.’ Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Successful?
19Where are the gods of Fortress and Spread-Out? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they delivered Watch-Mountain from my hand?
20Who among all the gods of these lands has delivered his land from my hand? How then can He-Who-Is deliver Foundation-of-Peace from my hand?”
21But the people remained silent and did not answer a word, for He-Who-Is-Has-Strengthened had commanded, “Do not answer him.”
22Then My-Portion-Is-He-Who-Is’s son God-Will-Establish the palace administrator, Growth the scribe, and Gatherer’s son He-Who-Is-Brother the recorder came to He-Who-Is-Has-Strengthened with their clothes torn, and they relayed to him the words of the Chief-Cupbearer.