Chapter 19

Isaiah Encourages Hezekiah

1 aAnd when King Hezekiah heard it, he btore his clothes, ccovered himself with sackcloth and entered the house of the Lord.

2 Then he sent Eliakim who was over the household with Shebna the scribe and the elders of the priests, acovered with sackcloth, to bIsaiah the prophet the son of Amoz.

3 They said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah, ‘This day is a day of distress, rebuke, and rejection; for children have come to birth and there is no strength to deliver.

4 ‘aPerhaps the Lord your God will hear all the words of Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent bto reproach the living God, and will rebuke the words which the Lord your God has heard. Therefore, offer a prayer for cthe remnant that is left.’ ”

5 So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah.

6 Isaiah said to them, “Thus you shall say to your master, ‘Thus says the Lord, “Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the aservants of the king of Assyria bhave blasphemed Me.

7 “Behold, I will put a spirit in him so that ahe will hear a rumor and return to his own land. And bI will make him fall by the sword in his own land.” ’ ”

Sennacherib Defies God

8 Then Rabshakeh returned and found the king of Assyria fighting against aLibnah, for he had heard that 1the king had left bLachish.

9 When he heard them say concerning Tirhakah king of 1Cush, “Behold, he has come out to fight against you,” he sent messengers again to Hezekiah saying,

10 “Thus you shall say to Hezekiah king of 1Judah, ‘Do not alet your God in whom you trust deceive you saying, “bJerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”

11 ‘Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands, destroying them completely. So will you be 1spared?

12 ‘aDid the gods of 1those nations which my fathers destroyed deliver them, even bGozan and cHaran and Rezeph and dthe sons of Eden who were in Telassar?

13 ‘aWhere is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, and of Hena and Ivvah?’ ”

Hezekiah’s Prayer

14 Then aHezekiah took the 1letter from the hand of the messengers and read it, and he went up to the house of the Lord and 2spread it out before the Lord.

15 Hezekiah prayed before the Lord and said, “O Lord, the God of Israel, awho are 1enthroned above the cherubim, bYou are the God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth.

16 “aIncline Your ear, O Lord, and hear; bopen Your eyes, O Lord, and see; and listen to the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent cto reproach the living God.

17 “Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have devastated the nations and their lands

18 and have cast their gods into the fire, afor they were not gods but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. So they have destroyed them.

19 “Now, O Lord our God, I pray, deliver us from his hand athat all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone, O bLord, are God.”

God’s Answer through Isaiah

20 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah saying, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Because you have prayed to Me about Sennacherib king of Assyria, aI have heard you.’

21 “This is the word that the Lord has spoken against him:

‘She has despised you and mocked you,

aThe virgin daughter of Zion;

She bhas shaken her head behind you,

The daughter of Jerusalem!

22 ‘Whom have you areproached and bblasphemed?

And against whom have you raised your voice,

And 1haughtily lifted up your eyes?

Against the cHoly One of Israel!

23 ‘aThrough your messengers you have reproached the Lord,

And you have said, “With my many chariots

I came up to the heights of the mountains,

To the remotest parts of Lebanon;

And I 1cut down its tall cedars and its choice cypresses.

And I 1entered its farthest lodging place, its bthickest forest.

24 “I dug wells and drank foreign waters,

And with the sole of my feet I 1adried up

All the rivers of 2Egypt.”

25 ‘aHave you not heard?

Long ago I did it;

From ancient times I planned it.

bNow I have brought it to pass,

That you should turn fortified cities into ruinous heaps.

26 ‘Therefore their inhabitants were short of strength,

They were dismayed and put to shame;

They were aas the vegetation of the field and as the green herb,

As grass on the housetops is scorched before it is grown up.

27 ‘But aI know your sitting down,

And your going out and your coming in,

And your raging against Me.

28 ‘Because of your raging against Me,

And because your 1arrogance has come up to My ears,

Therefore I awill put My hook in your nose,

And My bridle in your lips,

And bI will turn you back by the way which you came.

29 ‘Then this shall be athe sign for you: 1you will eat this year what grows of itself, in the second year what springs from the same, and in the third year sow, reap, plant vineyards, and eat their fruit.

30 ‘aThe surviving remnant of the house of Judah will again take root downward and bear fruit upward.

31 ‘For out of Jerusalem will go forth a remnant, and aout of Mount Zion 1survivors. bThe zeal of 2the Lord will perform this.

32 ‘Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, “aHe will not come to this city or shoot an arrow there; and he will not come before it with a shield or throw up a siege ramp against it.

33 “aBy the way that he came, by the same he will return, and he shall not come to this city,” ’ declares the Lord.

34 ‘aFor I will defend this city to save it for My own sake and bfor My servant David’s sake.’ ”

35 aThen it happened that night that the angel of the Lord went out and struck 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians; and when 1men rose early in the morning, behold, all of them were 2dead.

36 So aSennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned home, and lived at bNineveh.

37 It came about as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, that 1aAdrammelech and Sharezer killed him with the sword; and they escaped into bthe land of Ararat. And cEsarhaddon his son became king in his place.