2 Kings 19

1And when King Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of Yahweh.

2And he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, clothed in sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz.

3They said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah: This day is a day of distress, rebuke, and disgrace, for children have come to the point of birth, but there is no strength to give birth.”

4Perhaps Yahweh your God will hear all 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 Yahweh your God has heard. Therefore lift up a prayer for the remnant that remains.

5So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah.

6Isaiah said to them, “Thus you shall say to your master: Thus says Yahweh, ‘Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.’”

7Look, I am putting a spirit in him, and he will hear a report and return to his own land, and I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.

8So the Rabshakeh returned and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah, for he had heard that he had departed from Lachish.

9When he heard concerning Tirhakah king of Cush, saying, “Look, he has come out to fight against you,” he turned back and sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,

10Thus you shall say to Hezekiah king 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.”’

11Look, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands, devoting them to destruction—and will you be delivered?

12Did the gods of the nations that my fathers destroyed deliver them—Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Tel-assar?

13Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?

14Then Hezekiah took the letters from the hand of the messengers and read them, and he went up to the house of Yahweh, and Hezekiah spread them before Yahweh.

15And Hezekiah prayed before Yahweh and said, “Yahweh, God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You made the heavens and the earth.”

16Incline your ear, O Yahweh, and hear; open your eyes, O Yahweh, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God.

17Truly, O Yahweh, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands.

18and they have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the work of human hands, wood and stone; therefore they destroyed them.

19And now, Yahweh our God, please save us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are God.

20Then Isaiah 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, I have heard.”

21This is the word that Yahweh has spoken concerning him: ‘Virgin Daughter Zion despises you; she mocks you. Daughter Jerusalem shakes her head behind you.’

22Whom have you mocked and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel.

23By the hand of your messengers you have mocked the Lord, and you have said, ‘With my many chariots I myself have gone up to the heights of the mountains, to the remotest parts of Lebanon; and I will cut down its tall cedars, its choicest cypresses, and I will enter its farthest lodging place, its forest garden.’

24I myself have dug and drunk foreign waters, and with the sole of my feet I dry up all the streams of Egypt.

25Have you not heard? Long ago I made it; from days of old I formed it. Now I have brought it to pass, that you should lay waste fortified cities into heaps of ruins.

26Therefore their inhabitants were short of strength; they were dismayed and put to shame. They were like the grass of the field and green growth, like grass on the housetops, and scorched before it is grown.

27But I know your sitting down, your going out, and your coming in, and your raging against me.

28Because your raging against me and your complacency have come up into my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way by which you came.

29And this shall be the sign for you: this year eat what grows by itself, and in the second year what springs from that; and in the third year sow and reap, and plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

30And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah will again take root downward and bear fruit upward.

31For from Jerusalem a remnant will go out, and from Mount Zion survivors. The zeal of Yahweh will do this.

32Therefore thus says Yahweh 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 ramp against it.

33By the way that he came, by it he will return, and he will not come to this city, declares Yahweh.

34For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.

35And that night the angel of Yahweh went out and struck down one hundred eighty-five thousand in the camp of Assyria. When people rose early in the morning, behold, all of them were dead bodies.

36So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went and returned, and he lived in Nineveh.

37And it happened that, as he was worshiping in the house of Nisrok his god, Adrammelek and Sharezer struck him down with the sword, and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esar-haddon his son reigned in his place.