¹And it came to pass, when King Hezekiah heard it, that he tore his clothes and covered himself in sackcloth, and he went to the house of the Lord. ²And he sent Eliakim, who was in charge of the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests – having covered themselves in sackcloth – to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz. ³And they said to him, “This is what Hezekiah says: ‘This day is a day of anguish and chastening and indignity, for the sons have arrived at the stage of breaking out of the womb, but there isn't the strength to give birth. ⁴Perhaps the Lord your God will have heard all the words of the chief butler, whom the king of Assyria, his master, sent to defy the living God, and he will condemn the words which the Lord your God has heard, so you will take up a prayer for the remnant which is found.’ ” ⁵And when King Hezekiah's servants came to Isaiah, ⁶Isaiah said to them, “This is what you will say to your master: ‘This is what the Lord says: «Do not be afraid of the words which you have heard, because the servants of the king of Assyria have vilified me. ⁷I am about to put in him a certain spirit, and he will hear a rumour, and he will return to his country, and I will bring him down by the sword in his own country.» ’ ” ⁸Then the chief butler returned and found the king of Assyria at war with Libnah, for he had heard that he had moved from Lachish. ⁹And when he heard about Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, when informants said, “Look, he has gone out to wage war with you”, he sent messengers again to Hezekiah to say, ¹⁰“This is what you will say to Hezekiah king of Judah. Say, ‘Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you, when he says, «Jerusalem will not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.» ¹¹Look, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the countries, in obliterating them. So will you be delivered? ¹²Have the gods of the nations delivered them – nations which my fathers brought to ruin: Gozan and Haran and Rezeph and the sons of Eden who were in Telassar? ¹³Where is the king of Hamath or the king of Arpad or the king of the city of Sepharvaim, Hena or Ivvah?’ ” ¹⁴And Hezekiah took the communiqué from the hand of the messengers and read it, and he went up to the house of the Lord, and Hezekiah spread it before the Lord. ¹⁵And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord and said, “O Lord God of Israel, you who dwell between the cherubim, you alone are the God of all the kingdoms of the earth. You made heaven and the earth. ¹⁶Incline, O Lord, your ear and hear; open, O Lord, your eyes and see, and hear the words of Sennacherib who sent him to defy the living God. ¹⁷Indeed, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid the nations and their land waste, ¹⁸and they have put their gods in a fire – although they are not gods, but the product of man's hands, wood and stone – and they have destroyed them. ¹⁹So now, O Lord our God, please save us from his grip, so that all the kingdoms of the earth will know that you are the Lord God, and only you.” ²⁰Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent word to Hezekiah as follows: “This is what the Lord God of Israel says: ‘I have heard what you have prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria.’ ²¹These are the words which the Lord spoke concerning him:

‘The virgin daughter of Zion despises you,

Derides you;

The daughter of Jerusalem

Shakes her head at you.

²²Whom have you defied and vilified,

And against whom have you raised your voice?

Well, you have lifted your eyes haughtily

Against the holy one of Israel.

²³Through your messengers you have defied the Lord^*

And said, «By the chariots of my chariot fleet

I have ascended to the heights of mountains

In the remote parts of Lebanon,

And I will cut down the tallest of its cedars

And the choice of its cypresses,

And I will come to its remotest abode

In its Carmel forest.

²⁴I have dug wells and drunk foreign water,

And by my expeditions

I have caused all the channels to places under siege

To dry up.»

²⁵Have you not heard from long ago

That I made this?

– That in ancient days, I formed it?

I have brought it about now,

And it is so that you should reduce fortified cities

To desolate heaps of stones.

²⁶And their inhabitants were powerless.

They were afraid and were put to shame;

They were wild vegetation and grassy verdure

– Wild grass on rooftops,

And blight on standing corn.

²⁷Now I have known your way of life

And your coming and going,

And your rage against me.

²⁸Because your rage against me and your wantonness

Have come up to my ears,

I will put my hook in your nose

And my bridle in your lips,

And I will turn you back to the road

By which you came.’

²⁹‘And this will be a sign to you:

This year you will eat the produce of spilt grain,

And in the second year the produce of self-sown grain,

But in the third year,

Sow and reap and plant vineyards,

And eat their fruit.

³⁰And the remnant of the house of Judah which remains

Will again strike root downward

And yield fruit upward.

³¹For the remainder will go out from Jerusalem,

As will a remnant from Mount Zion.

The zeal of the Lord

Will perform this.’

³²Therefore this is what the Lord says concerning the king of Assyria:

‘He shall not come to this city,

And he shall not shoot an arrow there,

And he shall not advance on it with a shield,

And he shall not raise an earthwork against it.

³³He will return by the road on which he comes,

And he shall not come to the city,

Says the Lord,

³⁴And I will defend this city,

So as to save it,

For my own sake

And for the sake of David my servant.’ ”

³⁵And it came to pass on that night that the angel of the Lord went out and struck down one hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrians' camp, and when people arose in the morning, they saw that they were all dead – corpses. ³⁶So Sennacherib king of Assyria moved off and departed, and he returned and stayed in Nineveh. ³⁷And it came to pass, while he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sarezer struck him down with the sword, and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.