Isaiah's Message of Deliverance

1And it came to pass, when king Hezekiah heard it, that he tore his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the LORD.

2And he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz.

3And they said unto him, Thus says Hezekiah, This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and blasphemy: for the children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring them forth.

4It may be the LORD your God will hear all the words of Rab-shakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master has sent to reproach the living God; and will reprove the words which the LORD your God has heard: therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that are left.

5So the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah.

6And Isaiah said unto them, Thus shall you say to your master, Thus says the LORD, Be not afraid of the words which you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.

7Behold, I will send a spirit upon him, and he shall hear a rumor, and shall return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.

8So Rab-shakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah: for he had heard that he had departed from Lachish.

9And when he heard concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, Behold, he has come out to fight against you: he sent messengers again unto Hezekiah, saying,

10Thus shall you speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Let not your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, Jerusalem shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.

11Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly: and shall you be delivered?

12Have the gods of the nations delivered them whom my fathers have destroyed; as Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden who were in Telasar?

13Where 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

14And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD.

15And Hezekiah prayed before the LORD, and said, O LORD God of Israel, who dwells between the cherubim, you are the God, even you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth.

16LORD, bow down your ear, and hear: open, LORD, your eyes, and see: and hear the words of Sennacherib, who has sent him to reproach the living God.

17Of a truth, LORD, the kings of Assyria have destroyed the nations and their lands,

18And have cast their gods into the fire: for they were no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone: therefore they have destroyed them.

19Now therefore, O LORD our God, I beseech you, save us out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you are the LORD God, even you only.

Isaiah's Message Concerning Sennacherib

20Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus says the LORD God of Israel, That which you have prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria I have heard.

21This is the word that the LORD has spoken concerning him; The virgin the daughter of Zion has despised you, and laughed you to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head at you.

22Whom have you reproached and blasphemed? and against whom have you exalted your voice, and lifted up your eyes on high? even against the Holy One of Israel.

23By your messengers you have reproached the Lord, and have said, With the multitude of my chariots I have come up to the height of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon, and will cut down the tall cedar trees thereof, and the choice fir trees thereof: and I will enter into the extremity of its borders, and into the forest of its Carmel.

24I have dug and drunk strange waters, and with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the rivers of besieged places.

25Have you not heard long ago how I have done it, and of ancient times that I have formed it? now have I brought it to pass, that you should lay waste fortified cities into ruinous heaps.

26Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, they were dismayed and confounded; they were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the housetops, and as grain blighted before it is grown up.

27But I know your dwelling place, and your going out, and your coming in, and your rage against me.

28Because your rage against me and your tumult has come up into my ears, therefore I will put my hook in your nose, and my bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back in the way by which you came.

29And this shall be a sign unto you, You shall eat this year such things as grow of themselves, and in the second year that which springs of the same; and in the third year sow you, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruit thereof.

30And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall yet again take root downward, and bear fruit upward.

31For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and they that escape out of mount Zion: the zeal of the LORD of hosts shall do this.

32Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor cast up a siege mound against it.

33By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, says the LORD.

34For I will defend this city, to save it, for my own sake, and for my servant David's sake.

35And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the LORD went out, and struck in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.

36So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh.

37And it came to pass, as 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 into the land of Ararat. And Esar-haddon his son reigned in his stead.