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📚And it came about, when King Hezekiah heard it, that he tore his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the LORD. 2 📚And he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders among the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz. 3 📚And they said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah, This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of blasphemy; for the children have come to the point of birth, and there is not strength to deliver them. 4 📚It may be the LORD your God will hear the words of Rabshakeh, whom his master, the king of Assyria, has sent to insult 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 So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah. 6 📚And Isaiah said to them, “You must say this to your master: Thus says the LORD, ‘Do not be afraid of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. 7 📚See, I will put a spirit in him, and he will hear a rumour and return to his own land. And I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.’ ”
8 📚So Rabshakeh returned and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah; for he had heard that he had departed from Lachish.
9 📚And he heard someone say concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, “He has come out to make war with you”. And when he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying, 10 📚“You must tell Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, ‘Do not let your God, in whom you trust, deceive you, saying, “Jerusalem will not be given into the hands of the king of Assyria.’ ” 11 📚Look, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, completely destroying them. And will you be rescued? 12 📚Have the gods of the nations rescued those which my fathers have destroyed, like Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden who were in Telassar? 13 📚Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah?”
King Hezekiah’s prayer
14 📚And 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 out before the LORD. 15 📚And Hezekiah prayed to the LORD, saying, 16 📚“O LORD of hosts, God of Israel, who dwells between the cherubim, you are God of all the kingdoms of the earth, you alone. You have made heaven and earth. 17 📚Incline your ear, O LORD, and hear. Open your eyes, O LORD, and see. And hear all the words of Sennacherib, who has sent messengers to insult the living God.
18 📚“It is a truth, LORD, that the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations, and their countries, 19 📚and have thrown their gods into the fire; for they were not gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. Therefore they have destroyed them. 20 📚Now therefore, O LORD our God, save us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you are the LORD, you only”.
Isaiah’s prophecy regarding Sennacherib
21 📚Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent word to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the LORD God of Israel, Because you have prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria, 22 📚this is the word which the LORD has spoken concerning him:
The virgin daughter of Zion
despises you,
and laughs you
to scorn.
The daughter of Jerusalem
shakes her head at you.
23 📚Whom have you insulted
and blasphemed?
And against whom have you
raised your voice,
and raised your eyes on high?
Against the Holy One of Israel.
24 📚Through your servants
you have insulted the Lord,
and have said,
‘By my many chariots I have
come up to the height
of the mountains,
to the sides of Lebanon,
and I will cut down
its tall cedars,
and its choice fir trees.
And I will enter the height
of its border,
and the forest of its
Carmel.
25 📚I have dug and drunk water,
and with the sole of my feet
I have dried up all the rivers
of the besieged places.’
26 📚“Have you not heard?
Long ago I made it.
From ancient times,
I formed this plan.
Now I have brought it to pass,
that you should be for causing
the crash of fortified cities into
heaps of ruins.
27 📚Therefore their inhabitants
had little power.
They were dismayed
and put to shame.
They were like the grass
of the field and the green plant,
like the grass on housetops
and vegetation scorched
before it has grown up.
28 📚But I know your dwelling place,
and your going out,
and your coming in,
and your rage against me.
29 📚Because your rage against me
and your uproar have come up
into my ears,
therefore I will put my hook
in your nose,
and my bridle in your lips,
and I will turn you back
the way by which you came.
30 📚“And this will be a sign to you, Hezekiah: You will eat this year what grows by itself; and the second year what springs up from it; and in the third year sow and reap and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit. 31 📚And the remnant that has escaped of the house of Judah will again take root downward, and bear fruit upward. 32 📚For out of Jerusalem a remnant will go out, and those who escape from mount Zion. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.
33 📚“Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria: He will not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shields, nor cast up a siege mound against it. 34 📚He will return by the way that he came, and will not come into this city, says the LORD. 35 📚For I will defend this city to save it for my own sake, and for the sake of my servant David”.
The destruction of the Assyrian army
36 📚Then the angel of the LORD went out, and struck a hundred and eighty five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, see, there were all the dead bodies. 37 📚So Sennacherib king of Assyria withdrew and went away. And he returned and lived at Nineveh. 38 📚And it so happened that as he was worshipping in the house of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Armenia. And his son Esarhaddon reigned in his place.