1 King Hezekiah heard it and he tore his clothes. He covered himself with sackcloth and entered the house of Jehovah.
2 Hezekiah sent Eliakim the palace administrator along with Shebna the scribe and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz.
3 They said to him: »Hezekiah says: This day is a day of distress, rebuke and rejection. Children have come to birth, and there is no strength to deliver.
4 »Perhaps Jehovah your God will hear the words of Rabshakeh. His master the king of Assyria has sent him to reproach the living God! He will rebuke the words Jehovah your God has heard. Therefore, offer a prayer for the remnant that survives.«
5 So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah.
6 Isaiah said to them: »Say to your master: Jehovah says: »Do not be afraid because of the words you have heard from the servants of the king of Assyria. For they have blasphemed me.
7 »»Listen! I will put a spirit in him so that he will hear a rumor and return to his own land. I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.« «
8 Then Rabshakeh returned and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah. He had heard a report that the king had left Lachish.
9 He heard this concerning Tirhakah king of Cush: »He has come out to fight against you.« So he sent messengers to Hezekiah and said:
10 »Say to Hezekiah king of Judah: Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you. He says to you: »Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.«
11 »You have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the countries. He destroyed them completely. And will you be delivered?
12 »Did the gods of the nations that were destroyed by my forefathers deliver them? And what about the gods of Gozan, Haran, Rezeph and the people of Eden who were in Tel Assar?
13 »Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, or of Hena or Ivvah?«
14 Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it. He went to the temple of Jehovah and spread it out before Jehovah.
15 Hezekiah prayed to Jehovah:
16 »O Jehovah of Hosts, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth.
17 »Give ear, O Jehovah, and hear! Open your eyes, O Jehovah, and see! Listen to all the words Sennacherib said to insult the living God.
18 »It is true, Jehovah, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste all these peoples and their lands.
19 »They have thrown their gods into the fire and destroyed them. But they were not gods! They were only wood and stone, fashioned by human hands.
20 »Now, O Jehovah our God, deliver us from his hand. That way all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O Jehovah, are God.
21 Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah: »This is what Jehovah, the God of Israel, says: Because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria,
22 this is the word Jehovah spoke against him: »The Virgin Daughter of Zion despises and mocks you. The Daughter of Jerusalem tosses her head as you flee.
23 »Who is it you have insulted and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes in pride? It is against the Holy One of Israel!
24 »By your messengers you have heaped insults on Jehovah. You said: With my many chariots I have ascended the heights of the mountains, the utmost heights of Lebanon. I cut down its tallest cedars, the choicest of its pines. I reach its remotest heights, the finest of its forests.
25 »I dug wells and drank the water there. With the bottom of my feet I dried up all the streams of Egypt.
26 »Have you not heard? Long ago I ordained it. In days of old I planned it! And now I have brought it to pass, that you have turned fortified cities into piles of stone.
27 »Their people are drained of power. They are dismayed and put to shame. They are like plants in the field, like tender green shoots, like grass sprouting on the roof, parched before it grows.
28 »I know where you stay and when you come and go and how you rage against me.
29 »For the reason that you rage against me and because your insolence arrogance has reached my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth. I will make you return by the way you came.«
30 »This will be the sign for you, O Hezekiah: This year you will eat what grows by itself. The second year you will eat what springs from that. But in the third year sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
31 »Again a remnant of the house of Judah will take root below and bear fruit above.
32 »Out of Jerusalem will come a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the Lord Jehovah will accomplish this.
33 »Therefore this is what Jehovah says concerning the king of Assyria: »He will not enter this city or shoot an arrow here. He will not come before it with shield, or build a siege ramp against it.
34 »He will return by the way that he came. He will not enter this city, declares Jehovah.
35 »I will defend this city and save it, for my sake and for the sake of David my servant!«
36 The angel of Jehovah put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp. The people got up the next morning and saw all the dead bodies!
37 So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there.
38 One day, while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer cut him down with the sword. They escaped to the land of Ararat. Esarhaddon his son succeeded him as king.