"Woe to the rebellious sons, is the oracle of Jehovah, Carrying out a plan which is not mine, Establishing a treaty contrary to my spirit, So that they heap sin upon sin; Who would set out for Egypt without asking my decision, To flee to the shelter of Pharaoh, And the refuge in the shadow of Egypt. The shelter of Pharaoh will be your shame, And the refuge in the shadow of Egypt your confusion." While Isaiah's position among the people, and his standing in the community in Jerusalem, made Hezekiah fear to do him bodily harm, or even to arrest him, the king and his counselors, who were, naturally, eager to gain all the assistance possible from the people at home, sent out men who were in favor of fighting Assyria to refute the opinions and arguments of Isaiah. These men also called themselves prophets of God; but Isaiah saw in them only false prophets: "For it is a rebellious people, lying sons, Sons who will not heed Jehovah's instruction, Who say to the seers, 'See not!' And to those who have visions, 'Give us no vision of what is right! Speak to us what is agreeable, give us false visions! Turn from the way, go aside from the path, Trouble is no more with Israel's Holy One.'" When Sennacherib's armies finally came into Judah, Isaiah still saw the possibility of saving the country from the horrors of devastation, and he warned the king and people in these words: "Therefore, thus saith the Holy One of Israel, Because ye reject this word, And trust in perverseness and crookedness and rely thereon, Therefore this guilty act shall be to you Like a bulging breach in a high wall about to fall, Suddenly, in an instant, will come its destruction; Yea, its destruction shall be as when one dashes an earthen vessel in pieces, shattering it ruthlessly, So that not a potsherd is found among the pieces With which to take up fire from the hearth or to draw water from a cistern." Notwithstanding the utter failure that faced Hezekiah in his course, neither he nor his counselors gave heed until Sennacherib had captured and destroyed forty-six fortified Judean cities and towns and had actually begun preparations for a siege of Jerusalem. It was then that Hezekiah came to his senses. When Sennacherib was at Lachish, Hezekiah sent him a message which was almost a duplicate of the one sent by Ahaz to Tiglath-Pileser: "I have offended; withdraw from me; whatever you lay on me I will bear." The tribute that Sennacherib laid on Hezekiah was three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. To meet this, Hezekiah was forced to ransack the Temple in Jerusalem and the treasure-chamber of the royal palace. He was even forced to strip the doors and pillars of the Temple of their gold decorations in order to make up the enormous tribute to send to Sennacherib.