Sennacherib’s Fall

21 Then Isaiah the 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, 22 this is the word that the Lord has spoken concerning him:

“ ‘She despises you, she scorns you—

xthe virgin daughter of Zion;

she wags her head behind you—

the daughter of Jerusalem.

23  “ ‘Whom have you mocked and reviled?

Against whom have you raised your voice

and lifted your eyes to the heights?

Against ythe Holy One of Israel!

24  By your servants you have mocked the Lord,

and you have said, zWith my many chariots

I have gone up the heights of the mountains,

to the far recesses of Lebanon,

ato cut down its tallest cedars,

its choicest cypresses,

to come to its remotest height,

its most fruitful forest.

25  I dug wells

and drank waters,

to dry up with the sole of my foot

all bthe streams cof Egypt.

26  d“ ‘Have you not heard

that I determined it long ago?

I planned from days of old

what now I bring to pass,

that you should make fortified cities

crash into heaps of ruins,

27  while their inhabitants, shorn of strength,

are dismayed and confounded,

and have become like plants of the field

and like tender grass,

like grass on the housetops,

blighted2 before it is grown.

28  “ ‘I know your sitting down

and your going out and coming in,

and your raging against me.

29  eBecause you have raged against me

and your complacency has come to my ears,

I will put my hook in your nose

and my bit in your mouth,

and fI will turn you back on the way

by which you came.’