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.

Chapter 20

Hezekiah’s Illness and Recovery

1 aIn those days Hezekiah became 1mortally ill. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, “Thus says the Lord, ‘bSet your house in order, for you shall die and not live.’ ”

2 Then he turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, saying,

3 “aRemember now, O Lord, I beseech You, bhow I have walked before You in truth and with a whole heart and have done what is good in Your sight.” And cHezekiah wept 1bitterly.

4 Before Isaiah had gone out of the middle court, the word of the Lord came to him, saying,

5 “Return and say to aHezekiah the leader of My people, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of your father David, “bI have heard your prayer, cI have seen your tears; behold, I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of the Lord.

6 “I will add fifteen years to your 1life, and I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria; and aI will defend this city for My own sake and for My servant David’s sake.” ’ ”

7 Then Isaiah said, “Take a cake of figs.” And they took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered.

8 Now Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “What will be the sign that the Lord will heal me, and that I shall go up to the house of the Lord the third day?”

9 Isaiah said, “aThis shall be the sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing that He has spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten steps or go back ten steps?”

10 So Hezekiah 1answered, “It is easy for the shadow to decline ten steps; no, but let the shadow turn backward ten steps.”

11 Isaiah the prophet cried to the Lord, and aHe brought the shadow on the 1stairway back ten steps by which it had gone down on the 1stairway of Ahaz.

Hezekiah Shows Babylon His Treasures

12 aAt that time 1Berodach-baladan a son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he heard that Hezekiah had been sick.

13 Hezekiah listened to them, and showed them aall his treasure house, the silver and the gold and the spices and the precious oil and the house of his armor and all that was found in his treasuries. There was nothing in his house nor in all his dominion that Hezekiah did not show them.

14 Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah and said to him, “What did these men say, and from where have they come to you?” And Hezekiah said, “They have come from a far country, from Babylon.”

15 He said, “What have they seen in your house?” So Hezekiah 1answered, “They have seen all that is in my house; there is nothing among my treasuries that I have not shown them.”

16 Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord.

17 ‘Behold, the days are coming when aall that is in your house, and all that your fathers have laid up in store to this day will be carried to Babylon; nothing shall be left,’ says the Lord.

18 ‘Some aof your sons who shall issue from you, whom you will beget, will be taken away; and they will become bofficials in the palace of the king of Babylon.’ ”

19 Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the Lord which you have spoken is agood.” For he 1thought, “Is it not so, if there will be peace and truth in my days?”

20 aNow the rest of the acts of Hezekiah and all his might, and how he bmade the pool and the conduit and brought water into the city, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

21 aSo Hezekiah slept with his fathers, and Manasseh his son became king in his place.

Chapter 21

Manasseh Succeeds Hezekiah

1 aManasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Hephzibah.

2 aHe did evil in the sight of the Lord, baccording to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord dispossessed before the sons of Israel.

3 For ahe rebuilt the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and bhe erected altars for Baal and made an 1Asherah, as Ahab king of Israel had done, and cworshiped all the host of heaven and served them.

4 aHe built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, “bIn Jerusalem I will put My name.”

5 For he built altars for aall the host of heaven in bthe two courts of the house of the Lord.

6 aHe made his son pass through the fire, bpracticed witchcraft and used divination, and dealt with mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord provoking Him to anger.

7 Then ahe set the carved image of Asherah that he had made, in the house of which the Lord said to David and to his son Solomon, “bIn this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen from all the tribes of Israel, I will put My name forever.

8 “And I awill not make the feet of Israel wander anymore from the land which I gave their fathers, if only they will observe to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the law that My servant Moses commanded them.”

9 But they did not listen, and Manasseh aseduced them to do evil more than the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the sons of Israel.

The King’s Idolatries Rebuked

10 Now the Lord spoke through His servants the prophets, saying,

11 “aBecause Manasseh king of Judah has done these abominations, bhaving done wickedly more than all the Amorites did who were before him, and chas also made Judah sin dwith his idols;

12 therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Behold, I am bringing such calamity on Jerusalem and Judah, that whoever hears of it, aboth his ears will tingle.

13 ‘aI will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria and the plummet of the house of Ahab, and I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down.

14 ‘I will abandon the remnant of My inheritance and deliver them into the hand of their enemies, and they will become as plunder and spoil to all their enemies;

15 because they have done evil in My sight, and have been provoking Me to anger since the day their fathers came from Egypt, even to this day.’ ”

16 aMoreover, Manasseh shed very much innocent blood until he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another; besides his sin bwith which he made Judah sin, in doing evil in the sight of the Lord.

17 aNow the rest of the acts of Manasseh and all that he did and his sin which he 1committed, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

18 aAnd Manasseh slept with his fathers and was buried in the garden of his own house, bin the garden of Uzza, and Amon his son became king in his place.

Amon Succeeds Manasseh

19 aAmon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Meshullemeth the daughter of Haruz of Jotbah.

20 He did evil in the sight of the Lord, aas Manasseh his father had done.

21 For he walked in all the way that his father had walked, and served the idols that his father had served and worshiped them.

22 So ahe forsook the Lord, the God of his fathers, and did not walk in the way of the Lord.

23 aThe servants of Amon conspired against him and killed the king in his own house.

24 Then athe people of the land 1killed all those who had conspired against King Amon, and the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his place.

25 Now the rest of the acts of Amon which he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

26 He was buried in his grave ain the garden of Uzza, and Josiah his son became king in his place.