1And it happened, when King Hezekiah heard, that he tore his garments and 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 son of Amoz the prophet.
3And they said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah: This day is a day of distress, of rebuke, and of disgrace, for children have come to the point of birth, but there is no strength to bring forth.
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 him for the words that 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 attendants of the king of Assyria have reviled me.
7Behold, 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 set out from Lachish.
9Now he heard concerning Tirhakah king of Cush, “He has come out to fight against you.” And when he heard it, he 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 shall you 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 Tel-assar?
13Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena and Ivvah?”
14And 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 out before Yahweh.
15And Hezekiah prayed to Yahweh, saying:
16“Yahweh of hosts, God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, over all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made the heavens and the earth.
17Incline your ear, O Yahweh, and hear; open your eyes, O Yahweh, and see; and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God.
18It is true, O Yahweh, that the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the lands and their land,
19and have given their gods to the fire, for they were not gods but the work of human hands, wood and stone; and so they destroyed them.
20And now, O 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 Yahweh has spoken concerning him: She despises you, she scorns you—the virgin daughter of Zion; behind you she wags her head—the daughter of Jerusalem.
23Whom have you reproached and reviled? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel!
24By the hand of your servants you have reproached the Lord, and you have said, ‘With my many chariots I have gone up to the heights of the mountains, to the far recesses of Lebanon; I cut down its tallest cedars, its choicest cypresses; I came to its remotest height, its densest forest.
25I dug wells and drank waters, and with the sole of my feet I dried up all the streams of Egypt.’
26Have 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 be used to lay fortified cities into desolate ruinous heaps.
27And their inhabitants, short of hand, were dismayed and put to shame; they were like the grass of the field and green herbage, like grass on the housetops, blighted before it is grown.
28But your sitting down and your going out and your coming in I have known, and your raging against me.
29Because 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 bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back on the way by which you came.
30And this will be the sign for you: This year you will 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.
31And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah will again take root downward and produce fruit upward.
32For out of Jerusalem a remnant will go out, and survivors from Mount Zion. The zeal of Yahweh of hosts will accomplish this.
33Therefore thus says Yahweh concerning the king of Assyria: He will not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there; he will not confront it with a shield, nor throw up a siege ramp against it.
34By the way that he came, by it he will return, and into this city he will not come — the declaration of Yahweh.
35And I will shield 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 in the camp of Assyria one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when they rose early in the morning — behold, all of them were dead corpses.
37So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went and returned, and he stayed in Nineveh.
38And it happened, while he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, that 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.
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