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ON THE ROAD FROM JERUSALEM TO JERICHO.
From a photograph in the possession of Rev. Louis F. Giroux of the American International College, Springfield, Mass., and used by his kind permission.

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He said moreover, "For there shall be peace and truth in my days."

(This king of Babylon was soon after defeated by the king of Assyria and driven out of Babylon. For some time he hid himself among the swamps in the southern part of his kingdom, but later was captured and killed.)

III
DELIVERANCE FROM THE ASSYRIANS

(About ten years after the king of Babylon had sent his messengers to Hezekiah there was a revolt against Assyria in Palestine. Hezekiah, in spite of the opposition of Isaiah, was deep in the plot. When Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, heard of the revolt, he sent his armies to Palestine to punish the kings who had dared to defy him. Judah and the other small kingdoms were not able to meet the Assyrian armies. The whole land was in terror, and Hezekiah, the king, who had been so eager for war, was glad enough, now that it had actually come, to seek the wise counsel of the prophet.)

Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, that Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them. And the king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah with a great army. And he stood by the conduit of the upper pool in the high way of the fuller's field. Then came forth to him Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder. And Rabshakeh said unto them, "Say ye now to Hezekiah, 'Thus saith the great king, the king of Assyria, What confidence is this wherein thou trustest? I say, thy counsel and [{272}] strength for the war are but vain words: now on whom dost thou trust, that thou hast rebelled against me? Behold, thou trustest upon the staff of this bruised reed, even upon Egypt; whereon if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it: so is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all that trust on him. But if thou say to me, We trust in the Lord our God: is not that he, whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away, and hath said to Judah and to Jerusalem, Ye shall worship before this altar? Now therefore, I pray thee, give pledges to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give thee two thousand horses, if thou be able on thy part to set riders upon them. How then canst thou turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master's servants, and put thy trust on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? And am I now come up without the Lord against this land to destroy it? The Lord said unto me, Go up against this land, and destroy it.'"

Then said Eliakim and Shebna and Joah unto Rabshakeh, "Speak, I pray thee, unto thy servants in the Syrian language; for we understand it: and speak not to us in the Jews' language in the ears of the people that are on the wall."