And it was, when King Hezekiah heard, that he tore his garments and covered himself with sackcloth, and came into the house of the LORD.
And he sent Eliakim, who was over the house, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah son of Amoz the prophet.
And they said to him: “Thus says Hezekiah: A day of distress, and of rebuke, and of contempt is this day — for children have come to the point of birth, and there is no strength to give birth.
Perhaps the LORD your God will hear the words of the Rab-shakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master sent to reproach the living God, and will rebuke the words that the LORD your God has heard. So lift up a prayer for the remnant that is found.”
And the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah.
And Isaiah said to them: Thus you shall say to your master, Thus says the LORD: Do not fear because of the words you have heard, with which the attendants of the king of Assyria have reviled me.
See, I am putting a spirit in him, and he will hear a report and return to his land; and I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.
Sennacherib’s Blasphemous Letter
And the Rab-shakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria making war against Libnah — for he had heard that he had pulled out from Lachish.
And he heard concerning Tirhakah king of Cush, saying, “He has come out to make war with you.” And he heard, and sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying:
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.”
See, you yourself have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands, devoting them to destruction — and will you be delivered?
Did the gods of the nations deliver them, whom my fathers destroyed — Gozan and Haran and Rezeph, and the sons of Eden who were in Telassar?
Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena and Ivvah?
Hezekiah’s Prayer
And Hezekiah took the letters from the hand of the messengers and read them; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the LORD and spread them out before the LORD.
And Hezekiah prayed to the LORD, saying:
LORD of hosts, God of Israel, enthroned on the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you made the heavens and the earth.
Incline your ear, LORD, and hear; open your eyes, LORD, and see. And hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he sent to reproach the living God.
Truly, LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the lands and their land,
and given their gods into the fire — for they were not gods, but the work of human hands, wood and stone; and they destroyed them.
And now, LORD our God, save us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the LORD.
Sennacherib’s Fall Prophesied
And Isaiah son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying: Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel — because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria —
This is the word that the LORD 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.
Whom have you reproached and reviled? And against whom have you raised a voice and lifted your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel!
By the hand of your servants you have reproached the Lord, and you have said: “With the multitude of my chariotry I have gone up the height of the mountains, the far parts of Lebanon; and I will cut down the tallest of its cedars, the choicest of its cypresses; and I will come to its highest height, its densest forest.
I myself have dug and drunk water, and I will dry up with the sole of my steps all the streams of Egypt.”
Have you not heard? Long ago I made it; from days of old I formed it. Now I have brought it about, and it is yours to turn fortified cities into desolate heaps of ruins.
And their inhabitants, short of hand, are shattered and ashamed; they have become grass of the field and green growth, grass of the rooftops, and a field scorched before the standing grain.
And your sitting and your going out and your coming in I know, and your raging against me.
Because of your raging against me, and because your uproar has come up into my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bridle on your lips, and I will turn you back on the way by which you came.
And this will be the sign for you: Eat this year what grows of itself, and in the second year what springs from that; and in the third year sow and reap, and plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
And the survivors of the house of Judah who remain shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward.
For from Jerusalem a remnant shall go out, and survivors from Mount Zion. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.
Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria: He will not come into this city, and he will not shoot an arrow there; and he will not come before it with a shield, and he will not pour up a siege ramp against it.
By the way that he came, by it he will return; and into this city he will not come — the utterance of the LORD.
And I will shield this city, to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of David my servant.
Jerusalem Delivered from the Assyrians
And the messenger of the LORD went out and struck in the camp of Assyria a hundred and eighty-five thousand; and they rose early in the morning, and see, all of them were dead corpses.
And Sennacherib, king of Assyria, pulled out and went, and returned; and he stayed in Nineveh.
And it was, as he was bowing down 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 became king in his place.
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