1 And when King Hezekiah heard it, he rent his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the LORD. 2 And he sent Eliakim, who 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 to say unto him, Thus hath Hezekiah said, This day is a day of trouble and of rebuke and blasphemy, for the sons are come to the place of breaking forth, and she that gives birth has no strength. 4 Peradventure, the LORD thy God will hear all the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria, his master, has sent to reproach the living God and will reprove the words which the LORD thy God has heard; therefore, lift up thy prayer for the remnant that is left. 5 So the slaves of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah. 6 And Isaiah said unto them, Thus shall ye say to your master, Thus hath the LORD said, Do not be afraid of the words which thou hast heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. 7 Behold, I will send a spirit upon him, and he shall hear a rumour and shall 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 had departed from Lachish. 9 And when he heard it said of Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia, Behold, he is come out to fight against thee; he sent messengers again unto Hezekiah, saying, 10 Thus shall ye speak to Hezekiah, king of Judah, saying, Let not thy God in whom thou dost trust deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria. 11 Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly; and shalt thou be delivered? 12 Peradventure have the gods of the Gentiles delivered those whom my fathers have destroyed, as Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the sons of Eden, who were in Thelasar? 13 Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivah?
14 And Hezekiah received the letter from 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, saying, O LORD God of Israel, who dwellest above the cherubim, thou alone art the God unto all the kingdoms of the earth; thou hast made heaven and earth. 16 Incline, O LORD, thy ear and hear; open, O LORD, thine eyes and see and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God. 17 Of a truth, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have destroyed the Gentiles and their lands 18 and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood or stone; therefore, they have destroyed them. 19 Now, therefore, O LORD our God, I beseech thee, save us now out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou alone art the LORD God.
20 Then Isaiah, the son of Amoz, sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus hath the LORD God of Israel said, That which thou hast prayed to me regarding Sennacherib king of Assyria I have heard.
21 This is the word that the LORD has spoken concerning him: Has he despised thee? Has he laughed thee to scorn, O virgin daughter of Zion? He has moved his head behind thy back, O daughter of Jerusalem.
22 Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed? And against whom hast thou exalted thy voice and lifted up thine eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel. 23 By the hand of thy messengers, thou hast reproached the Lord and hast said, With the multitude of my chariots I have come up to the height of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon, and will cut down the tall cedar trees thereof and the choice fir trees thereof; and I will enter into the habitation of his borders and into the forest of his Carmel. 24 I have dug and drunk the waters of others, and with the sole of my feet I have dried up all the rivers of defended places.
25 Hast thou never heard that from a long time ago I made her, and from ancient times I have formed her? Now I have made her come, and it shall be to lay waste fenced cities into ruinous heaps. 26 Therefore their inhabitants’ hands were too short; dismayed and confounded, they shall be as the grass of the field and as the green herb, as the hay on the housetops, that is dried up before it comes to maturity.
27 But I know thy abode and thy going out and thy coming in and thy rage against me. 28 Because thou hast raged against me and thy tumult has come up into my ears, therefore, I will put my hook in thy nose and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou didst come.
29 And this shall be a sign unto thee, Ye shall eat this year such things as grow of themselves, and in the second year such things as grow again of themselves; and in the third year ye shall sow and reap and plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them. 30 And that which has escaped, that which is left of the house of Judah, shall yet again take root downward and bear fruit upward. 31 For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant and deliverance out of Mount Zion; the zeal of the LORD of the hosts shall do this.
32 Therefore, thus saith the LORD concerning the king of Assyria, He shall 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 shall he return, and he shall not enter into this city, saith the LORD. 34 For I will defend this city, to save it, for my own sake and for my slave 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 one hundred and eighty-five thousand men; and when they arose early in the morning, behold, the corpses of the dead. 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 fled into the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon, his son, reigned in his stead.