The Book of the Prophet Isaiah 37

 The Book of the Prophet Isaiah 37

1 When King Hezekiah heard this, he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord.

2 He sent Eliakim, who was over the household, Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet son of Amoz.

3 They said to him, "This is what Hezekiah says: This day is a day of trouble and reproach and blasphemy, because children are near birth, and there is no strength to bear them.

4 Perhaps the Lord your God has heard the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria, his master, sent to reproach the living God and to reproach him with the words that the Lord your God has heard. Pray for the remnant that is left."

 5 Then the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah.

6 And Isaiah said to him, "Thus you shall say to your master: 'This is what the Lord says: Do not be afraid of the words you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.'

7 Behold, I will put a spirit within him, and he will hear a rumor and return to his own land; and I will strike him down with the sword in his own land."

8 So Rabshakeh returned and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah, for he had heard that he had withdrawn from Lachish.

9 And he heard that Tirhakah king of Ethiopia had come out to fight against him. When he heard this, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying:

10 Thus shall you speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Let not your God, in whom you trust, deceive you, saying, Jerusalem shall 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 utterly: and would you escape?

12 Did the gods of the nations whom my fathers destroyed deliver them: Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden, who were in Telassar?

13 Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?

14 So Hezekiah received the letters from the messengers and read them, and went up to the house of the Lord, and Hezekiah spread them out before the Lord. 

15 And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord, saying:

16 O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, who dwellest between the cherubim, thou art the God, even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; thou hast made heaven and earth.

17 Incline thine ear, O Lord, and hear: open thine eyes, O Lord, and behold; and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he hath sent to reproach the living God.

18 It is true, O Lord, that the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the countries, and their lands.

19 And they have cast their gods into the fire: for they were no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone: therefore they destroyed them.

20 Now therefore, O Lord our God, deliver us out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou, the Lord, art he only. 

21 Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, "This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: 'As for what you asked of me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria,

22 This is the word the Lord spoke about him: The virgin, the daughter of Zion, despises you and mocks you; the daughter of Jerusalem shakes her head behind you.

23 Whom have you defied and blasphemed? And against whom have you raised your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel.

24 By your servants you have defied the Lord and said, "With the multitude of my chariots I have gone up to the heights of the mountains, to the outer reaches of Lebanon; I will cut down its tall cedars and its choice fir trees, and I will enter its highest peak, into the forest of its fruitful field." 

25 I dug and drank the waters; and with the soles of my feet I dried up all the rivers of Egypt.

26 Have you not heard that I did this long ago, and that from ancient times I had it in mind? But now it is done, and I have willed that you should destroy the fortified cities and reduce them to desolate heaps.

27 Therefore their inhabitants, with their hands hanging down, were afraid and ashamed; they were like the grass of the field, and the green grass, and the hay on the housetops, and the wheat burned before the harvest.

28 But I know your sitting down, and your going out, and your coming in, and your fury against me.

29 Because of your anger against me, and because your arrogance has come up to my ears, behold, I will put my hook in your nose and my bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way by which you came. 

30 And this shall be a sign unto you: This year you shall eat that which grows of its own accord, and in the second year that which grows thereof. But in the third year sow, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit.

31 For the remnant that escaped of the house of Judah, and is left, shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward.

32 For out of Jerusalem shall come the remnant, and out of Mount Zion he that escaped: the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this.

33 Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning the king of Assyria; He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, neither shall he come before it with a shield, nor cast a siege against it.

34 By the way that he came, by that shall he return; but into this city he shall not come, saith the Lord.

35 For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.

36 Then the angel of the Lord went out and struck down one hundred eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians. When they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead bodies.

37 So Sennacherib king of Assyria withdrew and went, and returned and dwelt in Nineveh.

38 And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sherezer his sons struck him down with the sword; and they fled to the land of Ararat, and Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.