 1 When King Hezekiah heard, he tore his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth. And he went into the house of the Lord. 2 He sent Eliakim who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz. 3 They said to him, Thus says Hezekiah, This is a day of trouble and of rebuke and contempt. For the children have come to the birth and there is no strength to bring forth. 4 It may be the Lord your God will hear all the words of the chief cupbearer with which his master the king of Assyria has sent to reproach the living God, and will rebuke the words that the Lord your God has heard. And you shall lift up prayer for the rest who are left. 5 The servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah. 6 Isaiah said to them, You shall say 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 Behold, I will send a blast on him, and he will hear a rumor and will return to his own land. And I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land. 8 The chief cupbearer returned and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah, for he had heard that he had departed from Lachish. 9 When he heard it said of King Tirhakah of Ethiopia, Behold, he came out to fight against you and he again sent messengers to Hezekiah saying, 10 Speak to King Hezekiah of Judah saying, Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you saying, Jerusalem will not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria. 11 Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands by completely destroying them. And shall you be delivered? 12 Have the gods of the nations delivered them, nations that my fathers have destroyed, Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden in Telassar? 13 Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and of Ivah? 14 Hezekiah received the letters from the hand of the messengers and read it. Then Hezekiah went into the house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord. 15 Hezekiah prayed before the Lord and said, Lord God of Israel who dwells between the cherubim, you are God Himself. You alone of all the kingdoms of the earth, you have made the heavens and the earth. 16 Now Lord, bow down your ear and hear. Lord open your eyes and see and hear the words of Sennacherib who has sent him to taunt the living God. 17 Truly, Lord, the kings of Assyria have destroyed the nations and their lands. 18 They have thrown their gods into the fire, for they were not gods but the work of men's hands, wood and stone, and they have destroyed them. 19 Now, O Lord our God, I beseech you, save us out of his hand so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you are the Lord God, and you only. 20 Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah saying, Thus says the Lord God of Israel, I have heard what you have prayed to me against King Sennacherib of Assyria. 21 This is the word that the Lord has spoken concerning him: The virgin, the daughter of Zion, has despised you and laughed you to scorn. The daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head at you. 22 Whom have you mocked and blasphemed? And against whom have you exalted your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? Even against the Holy One of Israel. 23 You have mocked the Lord by your messengers and have said, With the multitude of my chariots I have come up to the height of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon, and will cut down its tall cedar trees, its choice fir trees. I will enter into the lodgings of its borders, its densest forest. 24 I dug wells and drank strange waters and dried up all the rivers of besieged places with the soles of my feet. 25 Have you not heard long ago how I made it? From ancient times I formed it. Now I have brought it to forth so that you could make wasted fenced cities into ruined heaps. 26 Their people were of small stature+. They were fearful and put to shame. They were like the grass of the field and the green herb. Like the grass on the house tops and like grain blasted before it was grown up. 27 But I know your sitting down and your going out, your coming in and your rage against me. 28 Because of your rage against me and because your arrogance has come to my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bridle in your lips. I will turn you back by the way you came. 29 This will be a sign to you. You will eat this year such things as grow of themselves and in the second year what springs up of the same. In the third year, sow and reap and plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them. 30 The remnant that has escaped of the house of Judah will yet again take root downward and bear fruit upward. 31 For out of Jerusalem will go forth a remnant, and they who escape out of Mount Zion. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will do this. 32 So the Lord says this concerning the king of Assyria. He will not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor throw up a bank against it. 33 By the way that he came, by the same he will return, and will not come into this city, says the Lord. 34 For I will defend this city, to save it for my own sake and for my servant David's sake. 35 That night, the angel of the Lord struck 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. When they arose early in the morning, they were all dead bodies. 36 King Sennacherib of Assyria departed and returned and lived at Nineveh. 37 As he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons, struck him with the sword and they escaped into the land of Ararat. Then his son Esarhaddon reigned in his place.
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