2 Kings 19:21–28

²¹This is the message that the Lord speaks to him, 

‘My dear people in Zion despise you and laugh at you. 

My people in Jerusalem shake their heads behind your back. 

²²Whom are you defying and slandering? 

Against whom are you shouting? 

Who are you looking at so arrogantly? 

It is the Holy One of Israel! 

²³Through your servants^cyou defy the Lord and say, 

“With my many chariots I’ll ride up the high mountains, 

up the slopes of Lebanon. 

I’ll cut down its tallest cedars and its finest cypresses. 

I’ll come to its most distant borders 

and its most fertile forests. 

²⁴I’ll dig wells and drink foreign water. 

I’ll dry up all the streams of Egypt 

with the trampling of my feet.” 

²⁵“ ‘Haven’t you heard? I did this long ago. 

I planned it in the distant past. 

Now I make it happen so that you will turn fortified cities 

into piles of rubble. 

²⁶Those who live in these cities are weak, discouraged, and ashamed. 

They will be like plants in the field, 

like fresh, green grass on the roofs, 

scorched before it sprouted. 

²⁷I know when you ⸤get up⸥ and sit down, 

when you go out and come in, 

and how you rage against me. 

²⁸Since you rage against me and your boasting has reached my ears, 

I will put my hook in your nose 

and my bridle in your mouth. 

I will make you go back the way you came.