¹ And it came to pass, when king Hezekiah heard it, that he rent his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the LORD. ² And he sent Eliakim, which was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz. ³ And they said to him, So says Hezekiah, This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and blasphemy: for the children have come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forward. ⁴ It may be the LORD your God will hear all the words of Rabshakeh, who the king of Assyria his master has sent to rebuke the living God; and will reprove the words which the LORD your God has heard: why lift up your prayer for the remnant that are left. ⁵ So the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah. ⁶ And Isaiah said to them, So will you say to your master, So says the LORD, Be not afraid of the words which you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. ⁷ See, I will send a blast on him, and he will hear a rumour, and will return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land. ⁸ So Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah: for he had heard that he was departed from Lachish. ⁹ And when he heard say of Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, See, he is come out to fight against you: he sent messengers again to Hezekiah, saying, ¹⁰ So will you speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Let not your God in who you trusts deceive you, saying, Jerusalem will not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria. ¹¹ See, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly: and will you be delivered? ¹² Have the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed; as Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden which were in Thelasar? ¹³ Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivah? ¹⁴ And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD. ¹⁵ And Hezekiah prayed before the LORD, and said, O LORD God of Israel, which dwells between the cherubims, you are the God, even you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. ¹⁶ LORD, bow down your ear, and hear: open, LORD, your eyes, and see: and hear the words of Sennacherib, which has sent him to rebuke the living God. ¹⁷ Of a truth, LORD, the kings of Assyria have destroyed the nations and their lands, ¹⁸ And have cast their gods into the fire: for they were no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone: therefore they have destroyed them. ¹⁹ Now therefore, O LORD our God, I beg you, save you us out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you are the LORD God , [even] you only. ²⁰ Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, So says the LORD God of Israel, That which you have prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria I have heard. ²¹ This is the word that the LORD has spoken concerning him; The virgin the daughter of Zion has despised you, and laughed you to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head at you. ²² Who have you reproached and blasphemed ? and against who have you exalted your voice, and lifted up your eyes on high? even against the Holy One of Israel. ²³ By your messengers you have reproached the Lord, and have said, With the multitude of my chariots I am come up to the height of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon, and will cut down the tall cedar trees of it, and the choice fir trees of it: and I will enter into the lodgings of his borders, and into the forest of his Carmel. ²⁴ I have dug and drunk strange waters, and with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the rivers of besieged places. ²⁵ have you not heard long ago how I have done it, and of ancient times that I have formed it? now have I brought it to pass, that you should be to lay waste fenced cities into ruinous heaps. ²⁶ Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, they were dismayed and confounded; they were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the housetops, and as corn blasted before it be grown up. ²⁷ But I know your abode, and your going out, and your coming in, and your rage against me. ²⁸ Because your rage against me and your tumult is come up into my ears, therefore 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. ²⁹ And this will be a sign to you, you will eat this year such things as grow of themselves, and in the second year that which springs of the same; and in the third year sow you, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruits of it. ³⁰ And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah will yet again take root downward, and bear fruit upward. ³¹ For out of Jerusalem will go forward a remnant, and those escape out of mount Zion: the zeal of the LORD [of hosts] will do this. ³² Therefore so says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria, He will not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a bank against it. ³³ By the way that he came, by the same will he return, and will not come into this city, says the LORD. ³⁴ For I will defend this city, to save it, for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake. ³⁵ And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the LORD went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred eighty-five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, see, they were all dead corpses. ³⁶ So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh. ³⁷ And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword: and they escaped into the land of Armenia. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead.