1And it came to pass, when King Hezekiah heard, that he tore his garments and clothed himself with sackcloth and entered into the house of the Lord.
2And he sent Eliakim the steward and Somnas the scribe and the elders of the priests, clothed in sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, son of Amos
3And they said to him, Thus says Hezekiah: This day is a day of affliction and reproach and provocation, for children have come to the point of birth, and there is no strength in the one giving birth.
4perhaps the Lord your God will hear all the words of Rapsakes, whom the king of the Assyrians sent, his master, to reproach the living God and to blaspheme with the words which the Lord your God heard; and you shall take up a prayer concerning the remnant that is found
5And the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah
6And Isaiah said to them, Thus you shall say to your lord: Thus says the Lord, Do not fear because of the words which you have heard, with which the servants of the king of the Assyrians have blasphemed.
7Behold, I am giving in him a spirit, and he shall hear a report and shall return to his land, and I will cast him down by the sword in his land
8And Rabshakeh returned and found the king of the Assyrians warring against Libnah, because he had heard that he had departed from Lachish.
9And he heard concerning Tirhakah king of the Ethiopians, saying, Behold, he has come out to make war with you, and he has turned back and sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,
10Let not your god in whom you trust lift you up, saying, Jerusalem shall surely not be given into the hands of the king of Assyria.
11Behold, you have heard all that the kings of the Assyrians did to all the lands, to destroy them, and you will be delivered.
12Did the gods of the nations, whom my fathers destroyed, deliver them: both Gozan and Haran and Rezeph and the sons of Eden who were in Thelasar?
13Where is the king of Hamath and the king of Arpad, and where is Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?
14And Hezekiah took the letters from the hand of the messengers and read them, and he went up into the house of the Lord and Hezekiah spread them out before the Lord
15And he said: O Lord, the God of Israel, who sits upon the cherubim, you alone are God in all the kingdoms of the earth; you made the heaven and the earth.
16Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear; open, O Lord, your eyes and see, and hear the words of Sennacherim, which he has sent to reproach the living God.
17For truly, Lord, the kings of the Assyrians have laid waste the nations.
18and they gave their gods into the fire, because they are not gods, but only the works of men’s hands, wood and stones, and they destroyed them
19And now, Lord our God, save us from his hand, and let all the kingdoms of the earth know that you are the Lord God alone.
20And Isaiah son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: what you prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of the Assyrians, I have heard.
21This is the word which the Lord spoke concerning him: The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and mocked you; the daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head at you.
22Whom have you reproached and blasphemed, and against whom have you lifted up your voice and raised your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel.
23By the hand of your messengers you reproached the Lord, and you said, By the multitude of my chariots I will go up to the height of the mountains, to the thighs of Lebanon, and I cut down the height of his cedar, his choice cypresses, and I came to the end of his forest, his Carmel.
24I drank strange waters, and I dried up with the sole of my foot all the rivers of the country around me
25I formed it; now I have brought it, and it has become for raising up the settlements of warrior cities, fortified cities.
26And those dwelling in them were weakened in the hand, they were terrified and were put to shame; they became grass of the field, or green plants, grass of rooftops, and a trampled thing before one standing opposite
27And your sitting and your going out and your coming in I have known, and your fury against me
28Because you were angered against me, and your insolence 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 by the way by which you came in it.
29And this shall be the sign for you: you shall eat this year what springs up of itself, and in the second year what grows up, and in the third year sowing and harvest and planting of vineyards; and you shall eat their fruit.
30And the escaped remnant of the house of Judah, the one left, shall again take root downward and shall make fruit upward.
31For from Jerusalem a remnant shall go out, and one being saved from Mount Zion; the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
32Not so; thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria: he shall not enter into this city, and he shall not shoot an arrow there, and a shield shall not come before it, and he shall by no means cast up a siege mound against it.
33By the way by which he came, by it he shall return, and into this city he shall not enter, says the Lord.
34And I will defend over this city for my sake and for David my servant's sake
35And it came to pass, until night, that the angel of the Lord went out and struck in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred eighty-five thousand; and they rose early in the morning, and behold, all were dead bodies.
36And Sennacherib king of the Assyrians departed and went and returned and dwelt in Nineveh
37And it happened, as he was worshiping in the house of Neserach his god, that Adrammelech and Sarasar, his sons, struck him with the sword, and they themselves escaped into the land of Ararat; and Asordan his son reigned in his place.