Your claim to have a strategy and military strength is just empty talk. ¹  In whom are you trusting that you would dare to rebel against me?

Stop trusting in human beings, whose life’s breath is in their nostrils. For why should they be given special consideration?

Your claim to have a strategy and military strength is just empty talk. ¹  In whom are you trusting, that you would dare to rebel against me?

Persist ¹  in trusting ²  your amulets and your many incantations, which you have faithfully recited ³  since your youth! Maybe you will be successful ⁴  – maybe you will scare away disaster. ⁵ 

Don’t let Hezekiah talk you into trusting in the Lord when he says, “The Lord will certainly rescue us; this city will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.”

Look, you must be trusting in Egypt, that splintered reed staff. If someone leans on it for support, it punctures his hand and wounds him. That is what Pharaoh king of Egypt does to all who trust in him!

Perhaps you will tell me, ‘We are trusting in the Lord our God.’ But Hezekiah is the one who eliminated his high places and altars and then told the people of Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You must worship at this altar.’

Don’t let Hezekiah talk you into trusting in the Lord by saying, “The Lord will certainly rescue us; this city will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.”

So I will destroy this temple which I have claimed as my own, ¹  this temple that you are trusting to protect you. I will destroy this place that I gave to you and your ancestors, ²  just like I destroyed Shiloh. ³ 

Now look, you must be trusting in Egypt, that splintered reed staff. If a man leans for support on it, it punctures his hand and wounds him. That is what Pharaoh king of Egypt does to all who trust in him.

Perhaps you will tell me, ‘We are trusting in the Lord our God.’ But Hezekiah is the one who eliminated his high places and altars and then told the people of Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You must worship at this altar in Jerusalem.’