<p class="bodytext">The chief adviser then stood there and called out loudly in the Judahite dialect,<n id="1" /> &#8220;Listen to the message of the great king, the king of Assyria.

<p class="bodytext">When the chief adviser heard the king of Assyria had departed from Lachish, he left and went to Libnah, where the king was campaigning.<n id="1" />

The king of Assyria sent his chief adviser<n id="1" /> from Lachish to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem,<n id="2" /> along with a large army. The chief adviser<n id="3" /> stood at the conduit of the upper pool which is located on the road to the field where they wash and dry cloth.<n id="4" />

<p class="bodytext">The chief adviser said to them, &#8220;Tell Hezekiah: &#8216;This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: &#8220;What is your source of confidence?<n id="1" />

<p class="bodytext">Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the chief adviser, &#8220;Speak to your servants in Aramaic,<n id="1" /> for we understand it. Don&#8217;t speak with us in the Judahite dialect<n id="2" /> in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.&#8221;

But the chief adviser said, &#8220;My master did not send me to speak these words only to your master and to you.<n id="1" /> His message is also for the men who sit on the wall, for they will eat their own excrement and drink their own urine along with you!&#8221;<n id="2" />p>

<p class="bodytext">Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace supervisor, accompanied by Shebna the scribe and Joah son of Asaph, the secretary, went to Hezekiah with their clothes torn in grief<n id="1" /> and reported to him what the chief adviser had said.

Perhaps the <sc>Lordsc> your God will hear all these things the chief adviser has spoken on behalf of his master, the king of Assyria, who sent him to taunt the living God.<n id="1" /> When the <sc>Lordsc> your God hears, perhaps he will punish him for the things he has said.<n id="2" /> So pray for this remnant that remains.&#8217;&#8221;<n id="3" />p>