1When king Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the LORD.
2He sent Eliakim, who was in charge of the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the chief priests, all covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz.
3They said to him, "This is what Hezekiah says: 'Today is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of insult against God. The children have come to the birth, but there is no strength to bring them out.'"
4"'Perhaps the LORD your God will hear all the words of Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to mock the living God. Perhaps he will rebuke the words that the LORD your God has heard. So lift up your prayer for the few who are left.'"
6Isaiah said to them, "Say this 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 insulted me."
7"Look, I will send a blast upon him. He will hear a rumour and go back to his own land, and there in his own land I will make him fall by the sword.'"
8So Rabshakeh went back, and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah, for he had heard that the king had left Lachish.
9Then the king heard it said of Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, "Look, he has come out to fight against you." So he sent messengers again to Hezekiah, saying,
10"Say this to Hezekiah king of Judah: 'Do not let your God, whom you trust, deceive you by telling you that Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria."
11Look, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands, destroying them completely. And will you be rescued?
12Did the gods of the nations rescue those whom my fathers destroyed, Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the people of Eden who 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?'"
14Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it. Then Hezekiah went up to the house of the LORD and spread it out before the LORD.
15Hezekiah prayed before the LORD and said, "O LORD God of Israel, you who live between the cherubims, you alone are the God of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth."
16LORD, bend down your ear and hear. Open your eyes, LORD, and see. Hear the words of Sennacherib, who has sent this man to mock the living God.
17It is true, LORD, that the kings of Assyria have destroyed the nations and their lands,
18and have thrown their gods into the fire. For they were not gods, but the work of human hands, wood and stone. That is why they could destroy them.
19"So now, O LORD our God, I beg you, save us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the LORD God."
20Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent word to Hezekiah, saying, "This is what the LORD God of Israel says: 'I have heard your prayer to me about Sennacherib king of Assyria.'"
21This is the word that the LORD has spoken about him: The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and laughed at you. The daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head at you.
22Whom have you mocked and insulted? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes so high? Against the Holy One of Israel.
23By your messengers you have mocked the Lord, and have said, 'With my many chariots I have come up to the height of the mountains, to the far sides of Lebanon. I will cut down its tall cedar trees and its finest fir trees. I will enter the furthest places where it ends, and the forest of its Carmel.
24I have dug wells and drunk strange waters, and with the soles of my feet I have dried up all the rivers of the besieged places.'
25Have you not heard? Long ago I did it. In ancient times I shaped it. Now I have brought it about, that you should lay waste walled cities into heaps of ruins.
26So the people who lived in them had little power. They were dismayed and ashamed. They were like the grass of the field, like the green plants, like grass on the housetops, like grain blighted before it has grown.
27But I know where you live, and when you go out and when you come in, and your rage against me.
28Because your rage against me and your uproar 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 by the way you came.
29This will be the sign for you: This year you will eat what grows by itself, and in the second year what springs up from that. But in the third year sow and reap, and plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
30Those left of the house of Judah who have escaped will once again take root downward and bear fruit upward.
31For out of Jerusalem a remnant will go out, and those who escape out of mount Zion. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.
32So this is what the LORD says about the king of Assyria: He will not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there. He will not come before it with a shield, nor build a ramp against it.
33By the way that he came, by that same way he will return. He will not come into this city, says the LORD.
34"For I will defend this city and save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David."
35That night the angel of the LORD went out and struck down a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians. When the people got up early in the morning, look, all of them were dead bodies.
36So Sennacherib king of Assyria left. He went back home and lived at Nineveh.
37As he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword, and they escaped into the land of Armenia. And Esarhaddon his son ruled in his place.