2 Reyes 19

Hezekiah sends to Isaiah

¹As soon as King Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes, wrapped himself in sackcloth, and entered the house of the LORD. ²He sent Eliakim, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the secretary, and the senior priests, all clothed in sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. ³They said to him, “Hezekiah says this: Today is a day of distress, of rebuke and of disgrace. Children have reached the opening of the womb, and there is no strength to bring them to birth. ⁴Perhaps the LORD your God will hear everything the chief officer said when his master the king of Assyria sent him to insult the living God, and will call him to account for the words the LORD your God has heard. Lift up a prayer, then, for the remnant that is still here.” ⁵So King Hezekiah’s officials came to Isaiah. ⁶Isaiah said to them, “Say to your master, ‘The LORD says this: Do not be frightened by what you have heard, the words with which the king of Assyria’s lackeys have reviled me. ⁷I am about to put a spirit in him: he will hear a rumor and go back to his own country, and in his own country I will make him fall by the sword.’” ⁸The chief officer went back and found the king of Assyria attacking Libnah, for he had heard that the king had left Lachish. ⁹Then the king heard that Tirhakah king of Cush was marching out to fight against him. So he sent messengers to Hezekiah again, saying, ¹⁰“Say this to Hezekiah king of Judah: ‘Do not let your God, the one you rely on, deceive you by saying, “Jerusalem will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.” ¹¹You yourself have heard how the kings of Assyria dealt with all the lands, wiping them out. And you expect to escape? ¹²Did the gods of the nations my forefathers destroyed rescue them, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden in Telassar? ¹³Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, or of Ivvah?’”^{a 14}Hezekiah took the letter from the messengers’ hand and read it through. He went up to the house of the LORD and opened it out in the presence of the LORD.

Hezekiah’s prayer

¹⁵Then Hezekiah prayed before the LORD: “LORD, God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim: you, and no one else, are God of every kingdom on earth. It was you who made the heavens and the earth. ¹⁶Turn your ear, LORD, and listen; open your eyes, LORD, and look. Hear the words of Sennacherib, who has sent his envoy to insult the living God. ¹⁷It is true, LORD, that the kings of Assyria have devastated the nations and their lands, ¹⁸and have flung their gods into the fire. Those were never gods, only wood and stone shaped by human hands, so they could destroy them. ¹⁹So now, LORD our God, please rescue us from his power, so that every kingdom on earth will know that you, LORD, alone are God.”

Isaiah’s answer

²⁰Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent word to Hezekiah: “The LORD, the God of Israel, says this: I have heard your prayer to me about Sennacherib king of Assyria. ²¹This is the word the LORD has spoken against him: \q The virgin, Daughter Zion, looks down on you and laughs at you; \q Daughter Jerusalem shakes her head at your back. ²²Do you know whom you have mocked and reviled? \q At whom did you shout, \q at whom did you lift your haughty eyes? At the Holy One of Israel! ²³Through your messengers you have mocked the Lord. \q You said, ‘With chariots past counting I have climbed the mountain heights, the far ridges of Lebanon. \q I will fell its loftiest cedars and its finest junipers. \q I will enter its most distant camping place and its lush forest.^{bc 24}I have dug wells and drunk foreign water, \q and under the tread of my feet every stream of Egypt will run dry.’^{d 25}Have you not heard? I did this long ago; \q in days of old I shaped it. \q Now I have made it happen, \q so that you turn walled cities into heaps of rubble. ²⁶Their people were powerless, \q terrified and put to shame. \q They were like the plants of the open field and fresh green herbs, \q like grass on a rooftop, scorched before it can stand tall.^{e 27}I know where you sit, when you go out and when you come in, \q and how you storm against me. ²⁸Since you rage against me \q and your arrogance has come up to my ears, \q I will set my hook in your nose and my bit between your lips, \q and I will lead you back along the same road by which you came. ²⁹Here is the sign for you: \q this year you will live on grain that sprang up untended, \q and next year on whatever comes up after it; \q but in the third year, sow and harvest, plant vineyards and eat what they bear. ³⁰Those of the house of Judah who escape and are left will once more put down roots below \q and bear fruit above. ³¹For a remnant will go out from Jerusalem, \q and from Mount Zion those who have escaped. \q The burning zeal of the LORD of Armies will make this happen.^f

The Assyrian army is struck down

³²Therefore the LORD says this about the king of Assyria: \q He will never set foot in this city. \q He will not fire a single arrow into it, \q nor face it with a shield, \q nor pile up an earthen ramp against its walls. ³³The road that brought him here will take him back again. \q This city he will not enter, declares the LORD. ³⁴I will shield this city and rescue it, \q for my own sake and for my servant David’s sake.” ³⁵That night the angel of the LORD went out into the Assyrian camp and struck down 185,000. At dawn, when people got up, they found them all lying dead. ³⁶So Sennacherib king of Assyria struck camp and went away. He returned home and stayed in Nineveh. ³⁷While he was bowing down in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer, his own sons, cut him down with the sword and fled to the land of Ararat. Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.^g