[1] When King Hezeki'ah heard it, he rent his clothes, and covered himself
with sackcloth, and went into the house of the LORD. [2] And he sent
Eli'akim, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and the
senior priests, covered with sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah the son of
Amoz. [3] They said to him, "Thus says Hezeki'ah, This day is a day of
distress, of rebuke, and of disgrace; children have come to the birth, and
there is no strength to bring them forth. [4] It may be that the LORD your
God heard all the words of the Rab'shakeh, whom his master the king of
Assyria has sent to mock the living God, and will rebuke the words which
the LORD your God has heard; therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant
that is left." [5] When the servants of King Hezeki'ah came to Isaiah, [6]
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 servants of
the king of Assyria have reviled me. [7] Behold, I will put a spirit in
him, so that he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land; and I will
cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.'" [8] The Rab'shakeh
returned, and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah; for he
heard that the king had left Lachish. [9] And when the king heard
concerning Tirha'kah king of Ethiopia, "Behold, he has set out to fight
against you," he sent messengers again to Hezeki'ah, saying, [10] "Thus
shall you speak to Hezeki'ah king of Judah: `Do not let your God on whom
you rely deceive you by promising that Jerusalem will not be given into the
hand of the king of Assyria. [11] Behold, you have heard what the kings of
Assyria have done to all lands, destroying them utterly. And shall you be
delivered? [12] Have the gods of the nations delivered them, the nations
which my fathers destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden
who were in Tel-assar? [13] Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad,
the king of the city of Sepharva'im, the king of Hena, or the king of
Ivvah?'" [14] Hezeki'ah received the letter from the hand of the
messengers, and read it; and Hezeki'ah went up to the house of the LORD,
and spread it before the LORD. [15] And Hezeki'ah prayed before the LORD,
and said: "O LORD the God of Israel, who art enthroned above the cherubim,
thou art the God, thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; thou hast
made heaven and earth. [16] Incline thy ear, O LORD, and hear; open thy
eyes, O LORD, and see; and hear the words of Sennach'erib, which he has
sent to mock the living God. [17] Of a truth, O LORD, the kings of Assyria
have laid waste the nations and their lands, [18] 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. [19] So now, O LORD our God, save us,
I beseech thee, from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know
that thou, O LORD, art God alone." [20] Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to
Hezeki'ah, saying, "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Your prayer to
me about Sennach'erib king of Assyria I have heard. [21] 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. [22] "Whom have you mocked and reviled? Against whom
have you raised your voice and haughtily lifted your eyes? Against the Holy
One of Israel! [23] By your messengers 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; I felled its tallest cedars, its
choicest cypresses; I entered its farthest retreat, its densest forest.
[24] I dug wells and drank foreign waters, and I dried up with the sole of
my foot all the streams of Egypt.' [25] "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 turn fortified cities into heaps of ruins, [26] 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? [27] "But I know your sitting down
and your going out and coming in, and your raging against me. [28] Because
you have raged against me and your arrogance has come into 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. [29] "And this shall be the sign for you:
this year you shall eat what grows of itself, and in the second year what
springs of the same; then in the third year sow, and reap, and plant
vineyards, and eat their fruit. [30] And the surviving remnant of the house
of Judah shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward; [31] for
out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of
survivors. The zeal of the LORD will do this. [32] "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. [33] By the way that he came, by the same he shall
return, and he shall not come into this city, says the LORD. [34] For I
will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my
servant David." [35] And that night the angel of the LORD went forth, and
slew a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians; and
when men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.
[36] Then Sennach'erib king of Assyria departed, and went home, and dwelt
at Nin'eveh. [37] And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god,
Adram'melech and Share'zer, his sons, slew him with the sword, and escaped
into the land of Ar'arat. And Esarhad'don his son reigned in his stead.
