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 son of Amoz, the prophet. 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 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 he heard about Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, when informants said, “He has gone out to wage war with you.” And when he heard about it, he sent messengers 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 to the Lord and said, ¹⁶“O Lord of hosts, 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. ¹⁷Incline, O Lord, your ear and hear; open, O Lord, your eyes and see, and hear all the words of Sennacherib who sent a messenger to defy the living God. ¹⁸Indeed, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid all the nations and their land waste, ¹⁹and 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. ²⁰So now, O Lord our God, save us from his grip, so that all the kingdoms of the earth will know that you are the Lord, and only you.” ²¹Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent word to Hezekiah as follows: “This is what the Lord God of Israel says: ‘Because you have prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria’, ²²these 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.

²³Whom 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.

²⁴Through your servants you have defied the Lord^*

And said, «By the numerical weight 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 ultimate height

In its Carmel forest.

²⁵I have dug wells and drunk water,

And by my expeditions

I have caused all the channels to places under siege

To dry up.»

²⁶Have 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 was so that you should reduce fortified cities

To desolate heaps of stones.

²⁷And 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.

²⁸Now I have known your way of life,

And your coming and going,

And your rage against me.

²⁹Because 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.’

³⁰‘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.

³¹And the remnant of the house of Judah which remains

Will again strike root downward

And yield fruit upward.

³²For the remainder will go out from Jerusalem,

As will the remnant from Mount Zion.

The zeal of the Lord of hosts

Will perform this.’

³³Therefore 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.

³⁴He will return by the road on which he came,

And he shall not come to this city,

Says the Lord.

³⁵And I will defend this city,

So as to save it,

For my own sake,

And for the sake of David my servant.’ ”

³⁶And the angel of the Lord went out and struck down one hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrians' camp, and when the people arose in the morning, they saw that they were all dead – corpses. ³⁷So Sennacherib king of Assyria moved off and departed, and he returned and stayed in Nineveh. ³⁸And it came to pass, while he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sarezer his sons struck him down with the sword, and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.