 1 When king Hezekiah heard, he tore his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth, and 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 day is a day of trouble and of rebuke and of blasphemy. 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 the words of Rabshakeh chief of the cupbearers, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to reproach the living God, and will reprove the words that the Lord your God has heard. And you shall lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left. 5 So the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah. 6 Isaiah said to them, So you shall say to your master, Thus says the Lord, Do not be afraid of the words which 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 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 So Rabshakeh chief of the cupbearers returned and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah. For he had heard that he had departed from Lachish. 9 He heard concerning King Tirhakah of Ethiopia, He has come out to war with you and he sent messengers to Hezekiah saying, 10 Say to King Hezekiah of Judah, Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you saying 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 by completely destroying them. Will you be delivered? 12 Have the gods of the nations delivered those whom my fathers have destroyed: 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? 14 Hezekiah received the letter from the courier's hand, and read it. And Hezekiah went into the house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord. 15 Hezekiah prayed to the Lord saying, 16 O Lord God of hosts, God of Israel, who dwells between the cherubim, you are He, God, you alone to all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made the heavens and the earth. 17 Bow down 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. 18 Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their land, 19 and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone. So they have destroyed them. 20 Now, 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 alone. 21 Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah saying, Thus says the Lord, God of Israel, Because you have prayed to me against King Sennacherib of Assyria, 22 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 behind you. 23 Whom have you mocked and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted up your eyes? Even against the Holy One of Israel. 24 By your servants you have mocked 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 the tall cedars of it, and its choice fir trees. And I will go to its greatest height, the forest of its Carmel. 25 I dug wells and drank water and dried up all the rivers of the besieged places with the soles of my feet. 26 Have you not heard from long ago how I made it? From ancient times I formed it. Now I have brought it to pass so that you could turn well defended cities into ruinous heaps. 27 Their inhabitants were short of hand. Dismayed and ashamed. They were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the housetops, even grain blasted before it has risen. 28 But I know your sitting down, and your going out, and your coming in, and your rage against me. 29 Because of your raging against me, and your arrogance has 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 by the way which you came. 30 This will be a sign to you: You will eat self sown grain this year. The second year what springs of the same. In the third year you shall sow and reap and plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them. 31 The remnant that has escaped of the house of Judah will again take root downward and bear fruit upward. 32 A remnant will go out of Jerusalem and those who escape out of Mount Zion. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. 33 So the Lord said this to the king of Assyria, He will not come into this city nor shoot an arrow there nor come before it with shield nor cast a bank against it. 34 By the way that he came, by the same he will return 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 my servant David's sake. 36 Then the angel of the Lord struck 185,000 in the camp of Assyria. They rose early in the morning and behold they were all dead corpses. 37 King Sennacherib of Assyria departed and returned and lived at Nineveh. 38 As he was worshiping in the house of his god Nisroch, Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons struck him with the sword and escaped into the land of Ararat. His son Esarhaddon reigned in his place.
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