1And it happened, when King Hezekiah heard it, that he tore his garments, 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, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, son of Amoz.
3And they said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah: This day is a day of distress, and of rebuke, and of contempt; for children have come to the point of birth, but there is no strength to deliver.”
4Perhaps Yahweh your God will hear all the words of the Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master has sent to taunt the living God, and will rebuke him for the words which Yahweh your God has heard. So 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 fear 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 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 set out from Lachish.
9And he heard concerning Tirhakah king of Cush, “Behold, he has come out to fight against you.” So he again sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,
10“Thus 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.’
11Behold, you yourself have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands, devoting them to destruction; and will you yourself be delivered?
12Did the gods of the nations deliver them, those whom my fathers destroyed—Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the sons 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 Ivvah?”
14Then Hezekiah took the letters from the hand of the messengers and read them; and Hezekiah went up to the house of Yahweh and spread it out before Yahweh.
15And Hezekiah prayed before Yahweh and said, “Yahweh, God of Israel, enthroned on the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth; you made the heavens and the earth.
16Incline your ear, Yahweh, and hear; open your eyes, Yahweh, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to taunt the living God.
17Truly, Yahweh, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their land,
18and have put their gods in the fire; for they were not gods, but the work of human hands, wood and stone; and so 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, Yahweh, are God.”
20Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel: What you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria, I have heard.”
21This is the word that Yahweh has spoken against him: ‘She despises you, she mocks you—the virgin daughter of Zion; behind you she shakes her head—the daughter of Jerusalem.
22Whom have you taunted 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 taunted the Lord, and you have said: With my many chariots I have gone up to the heights of the mountains, to the far reaches of Lebanon; and I cut down its tallest cedars, the choicest of its cypresses; and I entered its farthest lodging place, the forest of its garden land.
24I dug and drank foreign waters, and with the sole of my feet I dried up all the streams of Egypt.
25Have you not heard? Long ago I did it; from days of old I formed it. Now I have brought it to pass, that you should turn fortified cities into ruinous heaps.
26And their inhabitants, short of hand, were dismayed and put to shame; they became like the grass of the field and the green herb, like grass on the housetops, blighted before it is grown.
27But I know your sitting down, your going out, and your coming in, and your raging against me.
28Because of your raging against me, and because your arrogance has 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 on the way by which you came.’
29“And this shall be the sign for you: This year you shall eat what grows of itself, and in the second year what springs from that; but in the third year, sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
30And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward.
31For out of Jerusalem a remnant will go forth, and survivors from Mount Zion. The zeal of Yahweh will do this.
32Therefore thus says Yahweh concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there; he shall not confront it with a shield, nor cast up a siege ramp against it.
33By the way that he came, by it he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, declares Yahweh.
34I will shield this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of David my servant.
35And it happened that night that the angel of Yahweh went out and struck down in the camp of Assyria a hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when they rose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.
36So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went and returned, and he stayed in Nineveh.
37And it happened, as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword, and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.
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