²¹Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent this message to Hezekiah: “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Because you prayed about King Sennacherib of Assyria, ²²the Lord has spoken this word against him:

“The virgin daughter of Zion

despises you and laughs at you.

The daughter of Jerusalem

shakes her head in derision as you flee.

²³“Whom have you been defying and ridiculing?

Against whom did you raise your voice?

At whom did you look with such haughty eyes?

It was the Holy One of Israel!

²⁴By your messengers you have defied the Lord.

You have said, ‘With my many chariots

I have conquered the highest mountains—

yes, the remotest peaks of Lebanon.

I have cut down its tallest cedars

and its finest cypress trees.

I have reached its farthest heights

and explored its deepest forests.

²⁵I have dug wells in many foreign lands

and refreshed myself with their water.

With the sole of my foot,

I stopped up all the rivers of Egypt!’

²⁶“But have you not heard?

I decided this long ago.

Long ago I planned it,

and now I am making it happen.

I planned for you to crush fortified cities

into heaps of rubble.

²⁷That is why their people have so little power

and are so frightened and confused.

They are as weak as grass,

as easily trampled as tender green shoots.

They are like grass sprouting on a housetop,

scorched before it can grow lush and tall.

²⁸“But I know you well—

where you stay

and when you come and go.

I know the way you have raged against me.

²⁹And because of your raging against me

and your arrogance, which I have heard for myself,

I will put my hook in your nose

and my bit in your mouth.

I will make you return

by the same road on which you came.”

³⁰Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Here is the proof that what I say is true:

“This year you will eat only what grows up by itself,

and next year you will eat what springs up from that.

But in the third year you will plant crops and harvest them;

you will tend vineyards and eat their fruit.

³¹And you who are left in Judah,

who have escaped the ravages of the siege,

will put roots down in your own soil

and grow up and flourish.

³²For a remnant of my people will spread out from Jerusalem,

a group of survivors from Mount Zion.

The passionate commitment of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies

will make this happen!

³³“And this is what the Lord says about the king of Assyria:

“ ‘His armies will not enter Jerusalem.

They will not even shoot an arrow at it.

They will not march outside its gates with their shields

nor build banks of earth against its walls.

³⁴The king will return to his own country

by the same road on which he came.

He will not enter this city,’

says the Lord.

³⁵‘For my own honor and for the sake of my servant David,

I will defend this city and protect it.’ ”

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