1 And when King Hezekiah heard it, he rent his clothes and put on sackecloth, and came into the house of the Lord, 2 And sent Eliakim which was the stewarde of the house, and Shebnah the chanceller, and the Elders of the Priestes clothed in sackecloth to Isaiah the Prophet the sonne of Amoz. 3 And they said vnto him, Thus saith Hezekiah, This day is a day of tribulation and of rebuke, and blasphemie: for the childre are come to the birth, and there is no strength to bring foorth. 4 If so be the Lord thy God hath heard all the wordes of Rabshakeh, whome the King of Asshur his master hath sent to raile on the liuing God, and to reproch him with wordes which the Lord thy God hath heard, then lift thou vp thy prayer for the remnant that are left. 5 So the seruants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah. 6 And Isaiah said vnto them, So shall ye say to your master, Thus sayeth the Lord, Be not afraide of the words which thou hast heard, wherewith the seruants of the king of Asshur haue blasphemed me. 7 Beholde, I will sende a blast vpon him, and he shall heare a noyse, and returne to his owne lande: and I will cause him to fall by the sworde in his owne lande. 8 So Rabshakeh returned, and founde the King of Asshur fighting against Libnah: for he had heard that he was departed from Lachish. 9 He heard also men say of Tirhakah King of Ethiopia, Beholde, he is come out to fight against thee: he therefore departed and sent other messengers vnto Hezekiah, saying, 10 Thus shall ye speake to Hezekiah King of Iudah, and say, Let not thy God deceiue thee in whome thou trustest, saying, Ierusalem shall not be deliuered into the hande of the King of Asshur. 11 Beholde, thou hast heard what the Kings of Asshur haue done to all landes, how they haue destroyed them: and shalt thou be deliuered? 12 Haue the gods of the heathen deliuered them which my fathers haue destroyed? as Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden, which were in Thelasar? 13 Where is the King of Hamath, and the King of Arpad, and the King of the citie of Shepharuaim, Hena and Iuah? 14 So Hezekiah receiued the letter of the hande of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went vp into the house of the Lord, and Hezekiah spread it before the Lord. 15 And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord, and saide, O Lord God of Israel, which dwellest betweene the Cherubims, thou art very God alone ouer all the kingdomes of the earth: thou hast made the heauen and the earth. 16 Lord, bow downe thine eare, and heare: Lord open thine eyes and behold, and heare the wordes of Saneherib, who hath sent to blaspheme the liuing God. 17 Trueth it is, Lord, that the Kings of Asshur haue destroyed the nations and their landes, 18 And haue set fire on their gods: for they were no gods, but the worke of mans hands, euen wood and stone: therefore they destroyed them. 19 Nowe therefore, O Lord our God, I beseech thee, saue thou vs out of his hande, that all the kingdomes of the earth may knowe, that thou, O Lord, art onely God. 20 Then Isaiah the sonne of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I haue heard that which thou hast prayed me, concerning Saneherib King of Asshur. 21 This is the worde that the Lord hath spoken against him, O Virgine, daughter of Zion, he hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorne: O daughter of Ierusalem, he hath shaken his head at thee. 22 Whome hast thou railed on? and whome hast thou blasphemed? and against whome hast thou exalted thy voyce, and lifted vp thine eyes on hie? euen against the Holie one of Israel. 23 By thy messengers thou hast rayled on the Lord, and said, By the multitude of my charets I am come vp to the toppe of the mountaines, by the sides of Lebanon, and will cut downe the hie cedars thereof, and the faire firre trees thereof, and I will goe into the lodging of his borders, and into the forest of his Carmel. 24 I haue digged, and drunke the waters of others, and with the plant of my feete haue I dried all the floods closed in. 25 Hast thou not heard, howe I haue of olde time made it, and haue formed it long ago? and should I nowe bring it, that it should be destroyed, and laid on ruinous heapes, as cities defensed? 26 Whose inhabitants haue small power, and are afraid, and confounded: they are like the grasse of the field, and greene herbe, or grasse on ye house toppes, or as corne blasted before it be growen. 27 I knowe thy dwelling, yea, thy going out, and thy comming in, and thy furie against me. 28 And because thou ragest against me, and thy tumult is come vp to mine eares, I will put mine hooke in thy nostrels, and my bridle in thy lippes, and will bring thee backe againe the same way thou camest. 29 And this shalbe a signe vnto thee, O Hezekiah, Thou shalt eate this yeere such things as growe of them selues, and the next yeere such as growe without sowing, and the third yeere sowe ye and reape, and plant vineyardes, and eate the fruites thereof. 30 And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Iudah, shall againe take roote downewarde, and beare fruite vpwarde. 31 For out of Ierusalem shall goe a remnant, and some that shall escape out of mount Zion: the zeale of the Lord of hostes shall doe this. 32 Wherefore thus saith the Lord, concerning the King of Asshur, He shall not enter into this citie, nor shoote an arrowe there, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a mount against it: 33 But he shall returne the way he came, and shall not come into this citie, saith the Lord. 34 For I will defende this citie to saue it for mine owne sake, and for Dauid my seruants sake. 35 And the same night the Angell of the Lord went out and smote in the campe of Asshur an hundreth foure score and fiue thousande: so when they rose earely in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. 36 So Saneherib King of Asshur departed, and went his way, and returned, and dwelt in Nineueh. 37 And as he was in the Temple worshipping Nisroch his god, Adramelech and Sharezer his sonnes slewe him with the sworde: and they escaped into the land of Ararat, and Esarhaddon his sonne reigned in his steade.
The King Asks Isaiah's Advice
(Isaiah 37.1-7)1 As soon as King Hezekiah heard their report, he tore his clothes in grief, put on sackcloth, and went to the Temple of the Lord. 2 He sent Eliakim, the official in charge of the palace, Shebna, the court secretary, and the senior priests to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. They also were wearing sackcloth. 3 This is the message which he told them to give Isaiah: “Today is a day of suffering; we are being punished and are in disgrace. We are like a woman who is ready to give birth, but is too weak to do it. 4 The Assyrian emperor has sent his chief official to insult the living God. May the Lord your God hear these insults and punish those who spoke them. So pray to God for those of our people who survive.”
5 When Isaiah received King Hezekiah's message, 6 he sent back this answer: “The Lord tells you not to let the Assyrians frighten you with their claims that he cannot save you. 7 The Lord will cause the emperor to hear a rumor that will make him go back to his own country, and the Lord will have him killed there.”
The Assyrians Send Another Threat
(Isaiah 37.8-20)8 The Assyrian official learned that the emperor had left Lachish and was fighting against the nearby city of Libnah; so he went there to consult him. 9 Word reached the Assyrians that the Egyptian army, led by King Tirhakah of Ethiopia, was coming to attack them. When the emperor heard this, he sent a letter to King Hezekiah of Judah 10 to tell him, “The god you are trusting in has told you that you will not fall into my hands, but don't let that deceive you. 11 You have heard what an Assyrian emperor does to any country he decides to destroy. Do you think that you can escape? 12 My ancestors destroyed the cities of Gozan, Haran, and Rezeph, and killed the people of Betheden who lived in Telassar, and none of their gods could save them. 13 Where are the kings of the cities of Hamath, Arpad, Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?”
14 King Hezekiah took the letter from the messengers and read it. Then he went to the Temple, placed the letter there in the presence of the Lord, 15 and prayed, “O Lord, the God of Israel, seated on your throne above the winged creatures, you alone are God, ruling all the kingdoms of the world. You created the earth and the sky. 16 Now, Lord, look at what is happening to us. Listen to all the things that Sennacherib is saying to insult you, the living God. 17 We all know, Lord, that the emperors of Assyria have destroyed many nations, made their lands desolate, 18 and burned up their gods—which were no gods at all, only images of wood and stone made by human hands. 19 Now, Lord our God, rescue us from the Assyrians, so that all the nations of the world will know that only you, O Lord, are God.”
Isaiah's Message to the King
(Isaiah 37.21-38)20 Then Isaiah sent a message telling King Hezekiah that in answer to the king's prayer 21 the Lord had said, “The city of Jerusalem laughs at you, Sennacherib, and makes fun of you. 22 Whom do you think you have been insulting and ridiculing? You have been disrespectful to me, the holy God of Israel. 23 You sent your messengers to boast to me that with all your chariots you had conquered the highest mountains of Lebanon. You boasted that there you cut down the tallest cedars and the finest cypress trees and that you reached the deepest parts of the forests. 24 You boasted that you dug wells and drank water in foreign lands and that the feet of your soldiers tramped the Nile River dry.
25 “Have you never heard that I planned all this long ago? And now I have carried it out. I gave you the power to turn fortified cities into piles of rubble. 26 The people who lived there were powerless; they were frightened and stunned. They were like grass in a field or weeds growing on a roof when the hot east wind blasts them.
27 “But I know everything about you, what you do and where you go. I know how you rage against me. 28 I have received the report of that rage and that pride of yours, and now I will put a hook through your nose and a bit in your mouth, and take you back by the same road you came.”
29 Then Isaiah said to King Hezekiah, “Here is a sign of what will happen. This year and next you will have only wild grain to eat, but the following year you will be able to plant your grain and harvest it, and plant vines and eat grapes. 30 Those in Judah who survive will flourish like plants that send roots deep into the ground and produce fruit. 31 There will be people in Jerusalem and on Mount Zion who will survive, because the Lord is determined to make this happen.
32 “And this is what the Lord has said about the Assyrian emperor: ‘He will not enter this city or shoot a single arrow against it. No soldiers with shields will come near the city, and no siege mounds will be built around it. 33 He will go back by the same road he came, without entering this city. I, the Lord, have spoken. 34 I will defend this city and protect it, for the sake of my own honor and because of the promise I made to my servant David.’”
35 That night an angel of the Lord went to the Assyrian camp and killed 185,000 soldiers. At dawn the next day there they lay, all dead! 36 Then the Assyrian emperor Sennacherib withdrew and returned to Nineveh. 37 One day, when he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, two of his sons, Adrammelech and Sharezer, killed him with their swords and then escaped to the land of Ararat. Another of his sons, Esarhaddon, succeeded him as emperor.