I said to the nobles, the officials, and the rest of the people, “The work is demanding ¹  and extensive, and we are spread out on the wall, far removed from one another.

And now, though we share the same flesh and blood as our fellow countrymen, ¹  and our children are just like their children, ²  still we have found it necessary to subject our sons and daughters to slavery. ³  Some of our daughters have been subjected to slavery, while we are powerless to help, ⁴  since our fields and vineyards now belong to other people.” ⁵ 

I said to them, “To the extent possible we have bought back our fellow Jews ¹  who had been sold to the Gentiles. But now you yourselves want to sell your own countrymen, ²  so that we can then buy them back!” They were utterly silent, and could find nothing to say.

At that time ¹  those who live on this coast ²  will say, ‘Look what has happened to our source of hope to whom we fled for help, expecting to be rescued from the king of Assyria! How can we escape now?’”

Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the chief adviser, “Speak to your servants in Aramaic, ¹  for we understand it. Don’t speak with us in the Judahite dialect ²  in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”

Let us acknowledge ¹  our shame. Let us bear the disgrace that we deserve. ²  For we have sinned against the Lord our God, both we and our ancestors. From earliest times to this very day we have not obeyed the Lord our God.’

The people say, ¹  “Why are we just sitting here? Let us gather together inside the fortified cities. ²  Let us at least die there fighting, ³  since the Lord our God has condemned us to die. He has condemned us to drink the poison waters of judgment ⁴  because we have sinned against him. ⁵ 

King Hezekiah and all the people of Judah did not put him to death, did they? Did not Hezekiah show reverence for the Lord and seek the Lord’s favor? ¹  Did not ²  the Lord forgo destroying them ³  as he threatened he would? But we are on the verge of bringing great disaster on ourselves.” ⁴ 

“And you, son of man, say to the house of Israel, ‘This is what you have said: “Our rebellious acts and our sins have caught up with us, ¹  and we are wasting away because of them. How then can we live?”’

“Son of man, the ones living in these ruins in the land of Israel are saying, ‘Abraham was only one man, yet he possessed the land, but we are many; surely the land has been given to us for a possession.’ ¹ 

Listen attentively, ¹  my God, and hear! Open your eyes and look on our desolated ruins ²  and the city called by your name. ³  For it is not because of our own righteous deeds that we are praying to you, ⁴  but because your compassion is abundant.

The king got up in the night and said to his advisers, ¹  “I will tell you what the Syrians have done to us. They know we are starving, so they left the camp and hid in the field, thinking, ‘When they come out of the city, we will capture them alive and enter the city.’”

Instead we will do everything we vowed we would do. ¹  We will sacrifice and pour out drink offerings to the goddess called the Queen of Heaven ²  just as we and our ancestors, our kings, and our leaders previously did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For then we had plenty of food, were well-off, and had no troubles. ³