Isaiah 37:21–35

Isaiah’s Message to the King

²¹Then Isaiah sent a message telling King Hezekiah that in answer to the king’s prayer ²²the Lord had said, “The city of Jerusalem laughs at you, Sennacherib, and despises you. ²³Whom do you think you have been insulting and ridiculing? You have been disrespectful to me, the holy God of Israel. ²⁴You sent your servants 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. ²⁵You boasted that you dug wells and drank water in foreign lands, and that the feet of your soldiers tramped the River Nile dry.

²⁶“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. ²⁷The 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.^a

²⁸“But I know everything about you, what you do and where you go. I know how you rage against me. ²⁹I 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 will take you back by the road on which you came.”

³⁰Then Isaiah said to King Hezekiah, “This 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 sow your corn and harvest it, and plant vines and eat grapes. ³¹Those in Judah who survive will flourish like plants that send roots deep into the ground and produce fruit. ³²There will be people in Jerusalem and on Mount Zion who will survive, because the Lord Almighty is determined to make this happen.

³³“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 round it. ³⁴He will go back by the road on which he came, without entering this city. I, the Lord, have spoken. ³⁵I will defend this city and protect it, for the sake of my own honour and because of the promise I made to my servant David.’ ”