2 Kings 19:21–34

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. 

²⁹“ ‘And this will be a sign for you, Hezekiah: You will eat what grows by itself this year and next year. But in the third year you will plant and harvest, plant vineyards, and eat what is produced. ³⁰Those few people from the nation of Judah who escape will again take root and produce crops. ³¹Those few people will go out from Jerusalem, and those who escape will go out of Mount Zion. The Lord is determined to do this.’ 

³²“This is what the Lord says about the king of Assyria: 

He will never come into this city, 

shoot an arrow here, 

hold a shield in front of it, 

or put up dirt ramps to attack it. 

³³He will go back the way he came, 

and he won’t come into this city,” 

declares the Lord of Armies. 

³⁴“I will shield this city to rescue it for my sake 

and for the sake of my servant David.”