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¹ And it happened, when King Hezekiah heard, that he tore his garments and covered himself with sackcloth and went in to the house of Jehovah;² and he sent Eliakim, who was over the house, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covering themselves with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz.³ And they said to him, So says Hezekiah, it is a day of distress, and of rebuke, and of contempt today; for the sons have come to the birth, and there is no power to bring forth.⁴ It may be that Jehovah your God will hear all the words of the chief cupbearer, with which his master the king of Assyria has sent him to reproach the living God, and will rebuke the words which Jehovah your God has heard; and you shall liftup prayer for the remnant that is found.⁵ And the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah.⁶ And Isaiah said to them, You shall say this to your lord: So says Jehovah, Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have reviled Me.⁷ Behold, I will put a spirit in him, and he shall hear a rumor and shall turn back to his land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his land.

⁸ And the chief cupbearer returned and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah, for he had heard that he had traveled from Lachish.⁹ And when he heard it said of Tirhakah the king of Ethiopia, Behold, he is coming out to fight against you, he sent messengers again to Hezekiah, saying,¹⁰ So you shall speak to Hezekiah the king of Judah, saying, Do not let your God in whom you trust delude 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 lands, by utterly destroying them; and shall you be delivered?¹² Have the gods of the nations delivered them, which my fathers have destroyed, Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the sons of Eden in Telassar?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 took the letters out of the hand of the messengers, and read them, and went up to the house of Jehovah. And Hezekiah spread it before the face of Jehovah.¹⁵ And Hezekiah prayed before Jehovah, and said, O Jehovah the God of Israel, who sits above the cherubs, You are God Himself, You alone, to all the kingdoms of the earth; You have made the heavens and the earth.¹⁶ O Jehovah, incline Your ear and hear; O Jehovah, open Your eyes and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib with which he has sent him to reproach the living God.¹⁷ Truly, O Jehovah, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations, and their lands;¹⁸ and have put their gods into the fire, for they were no gods, but the work of the hands of man, wood and stone, and have destroyed them.¹⁹ And now, O Jehovah our God, we pray to You, save us out of his hand, and all the kingdoms of the earth shall know that You are Jehovah God, You alone.

²⁰ And Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, So says Jehovah, the God of Israel, I have heard that which you have prayed to Me regarding Sennacherib the king of Assyria;²¹ this is the Word that Jehovah spoke concerning him: The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and laughed you to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head behind you.²² Whom have you reproached and reviled? Against whom have you lifted up a voice? Yea, you have lifted up your eyes on high, even against the Holy One of Israel!²³ By the hand of your messengers, you have defamed the Lord, and have said, With the multitude of my chariots I have gone up to the height of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon, and I will cut down the height of its cedars, the best of its firs, and I will enter into the furthest dwelling, its densest forest;²⁴ I have dug and drunk strange waters, and I dried up with the sole of my feet all the rivers of Egypt.²⁵ Have you not heard from afar, I made it? From days of old I formed it. Now I have caused it to come, that you should make fortified cities desolate ruin heaps.²⁶ And those living in them were short in hand; they were terrified and were ashamed; they were as the grass of the field, and the green herb, as the grass on the housetops and blasted grain before it was grown!²⁷ But I have known your sitting down, and your going out, and your coming in, and your rage against Me.²⁸ Because of your raging against Me, and because your arrogance has come up into My ears, even I will put My hook in your nose, and My bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way which you came.²⁹ And this shall be the sign for you: you shall eat this year that which grows of itself, and in the second year that which springs of the same; and in the third year you shall sow, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit.³⁰ And the escaped ones of the house of Judah that is left shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward.³¹ For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and out of Mount Zion they that shall escape; the zeal of Jehovah of Hosts shall do this.³² So Jehovah says this concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor shall he pour out a siege mound against it.³³ By the way that he came in, in it he shall return; and he shall not come into this city, says Jehovah.³⁴ For I will defend this city, to save it, for My own sake, and for My servant David's sake.

³⁵ And it happened in that night, that the Angel of Jehovah went out and struck a hundred and eighty five thousand in the camp of Assyria; and they rose up early in the morning, and behold, all of them were dead bodies.³⁶ And Sennacherib the king of Assyria moved, and went and returned, and lived in Nineveh.³⁷ And it happened, as he was bowing himself in the house of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. And his son Esarhaddon reigned in his place.