²⁵ Have I now come up without the Lord against this place to destroy it? The Lord said to me, ‘Go up against this land, and destroy it.’ ”

^26 (A)Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, Shebna, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in ^(B)Aramaic, for we understand it; and do not speak to us in ^[a]Hebrew in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”

²⁷ But the Rabshakeh said to them, “Has my master sent me to your master and to you to speak these words, and not to the men who sit on the wall, who will eat and drink their own waste with you?”