2 Kings

2 Kings 19

Hezekiah Sends to Isaiah

1 And when King Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and went into the house of the Lord. 2 And he sent Eliakim the steward, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, dressed in sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, son of Amoz. 3 And they said to him, “This is what Hezekiah says: This day is a day of affliction and rebuke and anger, for the children have come to the birth pangs, and the woman in labor has no strength. 4 It may be that the Lord your God will hear all the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of the Assyrians his master sent to reproach the living God and to revile him with words which the Lord your God has heard. And you — lift up a prayer for the remnant that is still to be found.”

5 And the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah. 6 And Isaiah said to them, “This is what you are to say to your master: This is what the Lord says: Do not be afraid of the words you have heard, with which the young servants of the king of the Assyrians reviled. 7 See, I am putting a spirit in him, and he will hear a report and go back to his own land; and I will bring him down by the sword in his own land.”

The Letter from Sennacherib

8 And Rabshakeh went back and found the king of the Assyrians making war against Libnah, for he had heard that he had set out from Lachish. 9 And he heard word about Tirhakah king of the Ethiopians: “Look, he has come out to make war with you.” And he turned back and sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,

10 “Do not let your God, the one you trust in, lift you up, saying, ‘Jerusalem will not be given into the hands of the king of the Assyrians.’ 11 Look, you yourself have heard everything the kings of the Assyrians have done to all the lands, devoting them to destruction. And will you be rescued? 12 Did the gods of the nations deliver them — the nations my fathers ruined: Gozan, and Haran, and Raphes, and the sons of Eden who were in Thaesthen? 13 Where is the king of Hamath and the king of Arpad? And where is Sepharvaim, Ana and Ava?”

Hezekiah Prays

14 And Hezekiah took the letters from the hand of the messengers and read them; and he went up to the house of the Lord, and Hezekiah spread them open before the Lord 15 and said, “Lord, God of Israel, you who sit above the cherubim — you alone are God in all the kingdoms of the earth; you made heaven and earth. 16 Turn your ear, Lord, and hear. Open your eyes, Lord, and see. And hear the words of Sennacherib, which he sent to reproach the living God. 17 For it is true, Lord: the kings of the Assyrians have laid the nations waste, 18 and they have given their gods to the fire — for they are not gods, but the works of men’s hands, wood and stone — and so they made an end of them. 19 And now, Lord our God, save us out of his hand, and all the kingdoms of the earth will know that you, Lord, are God alone.”

The Word Against Sennacherib

20 And Isaiah son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “This is what the Lord says, the God of armies, the God of Israel: What you prayed to me about Sennacherib king of the Assyrians — I have heard it.

21 This is the word the Lord has spoken against him:

The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and sneered at you;

the daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head at you.

22 Whom have you reproached and reviled?

And against whom have you raised your voice?

And you have lifted your eyes on high

against the Holy One of Israel.

23 By the hand of your messengers you have reproached the Lord, and you have said:

‘With my many chariots I will go up to the height of the mountains,

to the flanks of Lebanon;

and I cut down the height of its cedar, its choicest cypresses,

and I came into the heart of it, into its forest of Carmel.

24 I cooled myself and drank foreign waters,

and with the sole of my foot I dried up all the rivers of the stronghold.’

25 I shaped it; now I have brought it about,

and it has come to heaps — fighting men carried away, and fortified cities.

26 And those who lived in them were weak of hand;

they cowered and were put to shame.

They became grass of the field, or a green herb,

grass on the housetops, and something trodden down before one standing there.

27 And I know your sitting down, and your going out, and your coming in,

and your fury against me.

28 Because you were angry against me,

and your arrogance has come up into my ears,

I will put my hooks in your nostrils and a bridle in your lips,

and I will turn you back on the road by which you came.

29 And this will be the sign for you: this year you will eat what grows of itself, and in the second year what springs up from that; and in the third year there will be sowing and reaping and the planting of vineyards, and you will eat their fruit.

30 And what has come through safe of the house of Judah, what is left of it,

will put down a root below and will bear fruit above.

31 For out of Jerusalem a remnant will go out,

and one who comes through safe from Mount Zion.

The zeal of the Lord of armies will do this.

32 It will not be so. This is what the Lord says about the king of the Assyrians: He will not come into this city, and he will not shoot an arrow there, and no shield will reach it, and he will not pour out a siege mound against it. 33 By the road he came, by that road he will go back; and into this city he will not come, says the Lord. 34 And I will hold my shield over this city, for my own sake and for the sake of David my slave.”

The Camp of Assyria

35 And it happened that night: the messenger of the Lord went out and struck down in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five thousand. And they rose early in the morning, and there they were — all of them dead bodies. 36 And Sennacherib king of the Assyrians set out, and went, and turned back, and lived in Nineveh. 37 And while he was bowing down 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 Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.