2 Kings 19

And it came to pass, when king Hezekiah heard it, that he tore his own garments and put on sackcloth and went into the house of the Lord.

And he sent Eliakim the steward, and Somnas the scribe, and the elders of the priests, clothed with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, son of Amos.

And they said to him: Thus says Hezekiah: This day is a day of affliction and of rebuke and of provocation; for sons have come to the point of birth pangs, and there is no strength in her who gives birth.

Perhaps the Lord your God will hear all the words of Rapsakes, whom the king of the Assyrians his lord sent to reproach the living God and to blaspheme with words, which the Lord your God has heard; and you shall take up a prayer for the remnant that is found.

And the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah.

And Isaiah said to them: Thus you shall say to your lord: Thus says the Lord: Do not be afraid because of the words that you heard, with which the servant boys of the king of the Assyrians blasphemed.

Behold, I am putting a spirit in him, and he shall hear a report and return to his own land; and I will bring him down by the sword in his own land.

And Rapsakes returned and found the king of the Assyrians fighting against Lomna, for he had heard that he had departed from Lachis.

And he heard concerning Tharaka king of the Ethiopians, saying, Behold, he has come out to fight against you. And he turned back and sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,

Do not let your God, in whom you trust, lift you up, saying, Jerusalem shall not be given into the hands of the king of the Assyrians.

Behold, you have heard all that the kings of the Assyrians did to all the lands, devoting them to destruction; and shall you be delivered?

Did the gods of the nations deliver them, whom my fathers destroyed—Gozan and Charran and Raphes and the sons of Edem who were in Thaestheh?

Where is the king of Hamath and the king of Arpad? And where is Sepharvaim, Ana and Aua?

And Hezekiah took the letters from the hand of the messengers and read them; and he went up to the house of the Lord, and Hezekiah spread them open before the Lord.

And he said: O Lord, God of Israel, who sits upon the cherubim, you alone are God among all the kingdoms of the earth; you made the heaven and the earth.

Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear; open your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherim, which he sent to reproach the living God.

For in truth, O Lord, the kings of the Assyrians have laid the nations waste,

and they gave their gods into the fire; for they are not gods, but only works of human hands, wood and stones, and so they destroyed them.

And now, O Lord our God, save us out of his hand, and all the kingdoms of the earth shall know that you alone, Lord, are God.

And Isaiah son of Amos sent to Hezekiah, saying: Thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: What you prayed to me concerning Sennacherim king of the Assyrians, I have heard.

This is the word which the Lord spoke against him: The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and mocked you; the daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head at you.

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

By the hand of your messengers you reproached the Lord, and you said: With the multitude of my chariots I will go up to the height of the mountains, to the flanks of Lebanon; and I cut down the tallness of its cedar, the choicest of its cypresses; and I came to Melon at its farthest end, to the forest of its Carmel.

I cooled myself and drank foreign waters; and with the sole of my foot I dried up all the rivers of the fortified place.

I formed it; now I have brought it, and it has become heaps of settlements of fighting men, fortified cities.

And those who dwell in them were weak of hand; they cowered and were put to shame; they became grass of the field, or green herbage, greenery of rooftops, and a thing trampled before one who stands over it.

And your sitting down and your going out and your coming in I have known, and your rage against me.

Because you were angry at me, and your insolence came up into my ears, I will put my hooks in your nostrils and a bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way on which you came.

And this shall be the sign for you: this year you shall eat what grows of itself, and in the second year what springs up, and yet in the third there shall be sowing and reaping and planting of vineyards, and you shall eat their fruit.

And that of the house of Judah which has been saved, that which is left, shall again put down root and shall bear fruit upward.

For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and one escaping out of Mount Zion. The zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this.

Not so. Thus says the Lord concerning the king of the Assyrians: He shall not enter into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor shall a shield come before it, nor shall he pour out a siege mound against it.

By the way on which he came, by it he shall return; and into this city he shall not enter, says the Lord.

And I will hold my shield over this city for my own sake and for the sake of David my servant.

And it came to pass until night, and an angel of the Lord went out and struck in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred eighty-five thousand; and they rose early in the morning, and behold, all of them were dead bodies.

And Sennacherim king of the Assyrians departed and went and returned, and he dwelt in Nineveh.

And it came to pass, while he was worshipping in the house of Neserach his god, that Adramelech and Sarasar his sons struck him with the sword, and they escaped into the land of Ararat; and Asordan his son reigned in his place.