As soon as King Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes and
covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the LORD.
And he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the
secretary, and the senior priests, covered with sackcloth, to the
prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz. They said to him, “Thus says
Hezekiah, ‘This day is a day of distress, of rebuke, and of
disgrace; children have come to the point of birth, and there is no
strength to bring them forth. It may be that the LORD your God will
hear the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of
Assyria has sent to mock the living God, and will rebuke the words
that the LORD your God has heard; therefore lift up your prayer for
the remnant that is left.’”
When the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah, Isaiah said to
them, “Say to your master, ‘Thus says the LORD: Do not be afraid
because of the words that you have heard, with which the young men
of the king of Assyria have reviled me. Behold, I will put a spirit
in him, so that he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land,
and I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.’”
The Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria fighting
against Libnah, for he had heard that the king had left Lachish.
Now the king heard concerning Tirhakah king of Cush, “He has set
out to fight against you.” And when he heard it, he sent messengers
to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus shall you speak to Hezekiah king of
Judah: ‘Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you by
promising that Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the
king of Assyria. Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria
have done to all lands, devoting them to destruction. And shall you
be delivered? Have the gods of the nations delivered them, the
nations that my fathers destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the
people of Eden who were in Telassar? Where is the king of Hamath,
the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, the king of
Hena, or the king of Ivvah?’”
Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and
read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the LORD, and spread
it before the LORD. And Hezekiah prayed to the LORD: “O LORD of
hosts, God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the
God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made
heaven and earth. Incline your ear, O LORD, and hear; open your
eyes, O LORD, and see; and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which
he has sent to mock the living God. Truly, O LORD, the kings of
Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their lands, and have
cast their gods into the fire. For they were no gods, but the work
of men's hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed. So
now, O LORD our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms
of the earth may know that you alone are the LORD.”
Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says
the LORD, the God of Israel: Because you have prayed to me
concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria, this is the word that the
LORD has spoken concerning him:
“‘She despises you, she scorns you—
the virgin daughter of Zion;
she wags her head behind you—
the daughter of Jerusalem.
“‘Whom have you mocked and reviled?
Against whom have you raised your voice
and lifted your eyes to the heights?
Against the Holy One of Israel!
By your servants you have mocked the Lord,
and you have said, With my many chariots
I have gone up the heights of the mountains,
to the far recesses of Lebanon,
to cut down its tallest cedars,
its choicest cypresses,
to come to its remotest height,
its most fruitful forest.
I dug wells
and drank waters,
to dry up with the sole of my foot
all the streams of Egypt.
“‘Have you not heard
that I determined it long ago?
I planned from days of old
what now I bring to pass,
that you should make fortified cities
crash into heaps of ruins,
while their inhabitants, shorn of strength,
are dismayed and confounded,
and have become like plants of the field
and like tender grass,
like grass on the housetops,
blighted before it is grown.
“‘I know your sitting down
and your going out and coming in,
and your raging against me.
Because you have raged against me
and your complacency has come to my ears,
I will put my hook in your nose
and my bit in your mouth,
and I will turn you back on the way
by which you came.’
“And this shall be the sign for you: this year you shall eat
what grows of itself, and in the second year what springs from
that. Then in the third year sow and reap, and plant vineyards, and
eat their fruit. And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah
shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward. For out of
Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of
survivors. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.
“Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria: He
shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow there or come
before it with a shield or cast up a siege mound against it. By the
way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not
come into this city, declares the LORD. For I will defend this city
to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.”
And the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 in the
camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning,
behold, these were all dead bodies. Then Sennacherib king of
Assyria departed and returned home and lived at Nineveh. And as he
was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and
Sharezer, his sons, struck him down with the sword. And after they
escaped into the land of Ararat, Esarhaddon his son reigned in his
place.
