the commander of fifty and the man of rank, and the counselor, the expert magician, and the medium.

"The Assyrian commander has come upon Aiath and has passed through Migron; he stores his supplies at Michmash.

I myself have commanded my consecrated ones; I have also summoned my warriors, those who rejoice in my triumph, to carry out my angry judgments.

In the year that the supreme commander, sent by Sargon the king of Assyria, came to Ashdod, attacked it, and captured it

Then the king of Assyria sent his field commander, along with a very large army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. When the field commander stopped at the aqueduct at the Upper Pool on the road to Laundryman's Field,

The field commander told them:

But the field commander asked, "Was it only to all of you and to your master that my master sent me to speak these things? Wasn't it also to the men sitting on the wall who, like you, will have to eat their own excrement and drink their own urine?"

Then the commander stood up and shouted out loud in Hebrew:

But the people remained silent and didn't respond to him with so much as a single word, because the king had commanded, "Don't answer him."

Then Hilkiah's son Eliakim, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the secretary, and Asaph's son Joah, the recorder, approached Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and let him know what the field commander had said.

Perhaps the LORD your God will hear the words of the field commander, whom his master, the king of Assyria, sent to mock the living God, and perhaps he will rebuke the words that the LORD your God has heard. So lift up a prayer for the remnant that still survives in this city."

So the field commander returned and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah, since he had heard that the king of Assyria had left Lachish.

"Look! I have made him a witness to the nations, a leader and commander of the nations.