2 Kings 19

1When King Hezekiah heard this, he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of Yahweh.

2He sent Eliakim, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the secretary, and the senior priests, all covered in sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz.

3They said to him, “This is what Hezekiah says: Today is a day of distress, of rebuke, and of disgrace. Children have come to the moment of birth, but there is no strength to deliver them.

4Perhaps Yahweh your God will hear all the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria sent to mock 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 still survives.”

5When King Hezekiah’s officials came to Isaiah,

6Isaiah said to them, “Say this to your master: ‘This is what Yahweh says: Do not be afraid because of the words you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have insulted me.

7I am going to put a spirit in him so that he will hear a rumor and return to his own land, and I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.’”

8The Rabshakeh withdrew and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah, for he had heard that the king had left Lachish.

9Then the king heard that Tirhakah king of Cush had come out to fight against him. So he again sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,

10“Say this to Hezekiah king of Judah: ‘Do not let your God, in whom you trust, deceive you by saying, “Jerusalem will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.”

11Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands, destroying them completely. Will you be rescued?

12Did the gods of the nations that my ancestors destroyed rescue them—Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Telassar?

13Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, or of Hena or Ivvah?’”

14Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it. Then Hezekiah went up to the house of Yahweh and spread it out before Yahweh.

15Hezekiah prayed before Yahweh and said, “Yahweh, 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.

16Turn your ear, Yahweh, and hear. Open your eyes, Yahweh, and see. Hear the words that Sennacherib has sent to mock the living God.

17It is true, Yahweh, that the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands.

18They have thrown their gods into the fire, for they were not gods but only the work of human hands, wood and stone. That is why they could destroy them.

19So now, Yahweh our God, please save us from his power, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone, Yahweh, are God.”

20Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent this message to Hezekiah: “This is what Yahweh, the God of Israel, says: I have heard your prayer to me about Sennacherib king of Assyria.

21This is the word that Yahweh has spoken against him: The virgin daughter of Zion despises you and mocks you; the daughter of Jerusalem tosses her head behind your back.

22Whom have you insulted and mocked? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes in pride? Against the Holy One of Israel!

23Through your messengers you have mocked the Lord, and you have said, ‘With my many chariots I have gone up to the heights of the mountains, to the remotest parts of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars, its finest junipers. I have entered its farthest lodging place, its densest forest.

24I have dug wells and drunk foreign waters; with the soles of my feet I have dried up all the streams of Egypt.’

25Have you not heard? Long ago I made it happen; in days of old I planned it. Now I have brought it about, that you should turn fortified cities into heaps of ruins.

26Their people, drained of strength, are dismayed and put to shame. They are like plants in the field and tender green grass, like grass on the rooftops, scorched before it grows up.

27But I know when you sit down, when you go out and come in, and how you rage against me.

28Because you rage against me and your arrogance has reached my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth, and I will turn you back on the road by which you came.

29This will be the sign for you: This year you will eat what grows by itself, and the second year what springs up from that. But in the third year sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

30The survivors of the house of Judah who are left will once more take root below and bear fruit above.

31For a remnant will go out from Jerusalem, and survivors from Mount Zion. The zeal of Yahweh of Armies will do this.

32Therefore this is what Yahweh says about the king of Assyria: He will not come into this city or shoot an arrow here. He will not come before it with a shield or build up a siege ramp against it.

33He will return by the same road he came, and he will not come into this city, declares Yahweh.

34I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.”

35That night the angel of Yahweh went out and struck down 185,000 in the Assyrian camp. When people got up early in the morning, there were all the dead bodies.

36So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and went back home, and he stayed in Nineveh.

37One day, while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword and escaped to the land of Ararat. His son Esarhaddon became king in his place.