25 ‘Did you not hear long ago

How hI made it,

From ancient times that I formed it?

Now I have brought it to pass,

That iyou should be

For crushing fortified cities into heaps of ruins.

26 Therefore their inhabitants had little power;

They were dismayed and confounded;

They were as the grass of the field

And the green herb,

As jthe grass on the housetops

And grain blighted before it is grown.

27 ‘But kI know your dwelling place,

Your going out and your coming in,

And your rage against Me.

28 Because your rage against Me and your tumult

Have come up to My ears,

Therefore lI will put My hook in your nose

And My bridle in your lips,

And I will turn you back

mBy the way which you came.

29 ‘This shall be a nsign to you:

You shall eat this year such as grows 2of itself,

And in the second year what springs from the same;

Also in the third year sow and reap,

Plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them.

30 oAnd the remnant who have escaped of the house of Judah

Shall again take root downward,

And bear fruit upward.

31 For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant,

And those who escape from Mount Zion.

pThe zeal of the Lord 3of hosts will do this.’

32 “Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria:

‘He shall qnot come into this city,

Nor shoot an arrow there,

Nor come before it with shield,

Nor build a siege mound against it.

33 By the way that he came,

By the same shall he return;

And he shall not come into this city,’

Says the Lord.

34 ‘For rI will sdefend this city, to save it

For My own sake and tfor My servant David’s sake.’ ”

Sennacherib’s Defeat and Death

35 And uit came to pass on a certain night that the 4angel of the Lord went out, and killed in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses—all dead. 36 So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went away, returned home, and remained at vNineveh.