Isaiah 37

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

2Then he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah son of Amoz, the prophet.

3And they 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, and there is no strength to give birth.”

4Perhaps Yahweh your God will hear the words of the Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master has sent to reproach the living God, and will rebuke the words that Yahweh your God has heard. Therefore lift up a prayer for the remnant that is found.

5So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah.

6And Isaiah 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.’”

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

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

9And he heard concerning Tirhakah king of Cush, saying, “He has come out to fight against you.” And when he heard, he 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, destroying them utterly—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 Telassar?

13Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and of 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 spread them before Yahweh.

15And Hezekiah prayed to Yahweh, saying:

16O Yahweh of hosts, 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.

17Incline 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.

18Truly, O Yahweh, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the lands and their own land,

19and have put their gods into the fire, for they were not gods but the work of human hands, wood and stone; so they destroyed them.

20And now, Yahweh our God, save us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are Yahweh.

21Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel: Because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria,”

22This is the word that the LORD has spoken concerning him: ‘Virgin Daughter Zion despises you and mocks you; Daughter Jerusalem shakes her head behind you.’

23Whom have you mocked and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel.

24By your servants 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; I will cut down its tall cedars, its choicest cypresses, and I will enter its farthest height, its fruitful forest.’

25I dug and drank water, and with the sole of my feet I dried up all the streams of Egypt.

26Have 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.

27And their inhabitants were powerless; they were shattered and put to shame. They were like the grass of the field and green growth, like grass on the housetops, and like a field before the standing grain.

28But I know your sitting down, your going out, your coming in, and your raging against me.

29Because 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 that you came.

30And this will be the sign for you: this year eat what grows by itself, and in the second year what springs from that; but in the third year sow and reap, and plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

31And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah will again take root downward and bear fruit upward.

32For from Jerusalem a remnant will go out, and survivors from Mount Zion. The zeal of Yahweh of hosts will do this.

33Therefore thus says Yahweh concerning the king of Assyria: He will not come into this city, or shoot an arrow there, or come before it with a shield, or heap up a siege ramp against it.

34By the way that he came, by it he will return, and he will not come into this city, declares Yahweh.

35For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of David my servant.

36Then the angel of Yahweh went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of Assyria. When they arose early in the morning, behold, all of them were dead bodies.

37So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went and returned, and dwelt in Nineveh.

38And it happened that, as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons struck him down with the sword, and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esar-haddon his son reigned in his place.