Chapter 19

O¹n hearing this report, King Hezekiah tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, and entered the house of the LORD. ²And he sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the scribe, and the leading priests, all wearing sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz ³to tell him, “This is what Hezekiah says: Today is a day of distress, rebuke, and disgrace; for children have come to the point of birth, but there is no strength to deliver them. ⁴Perhaps the LORD your God will hear all the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to defy the living God, and He will rebuke him for the words that the LORD your God has heard. Therefore lift up a prayer for the remnant that still survives.”

⁵So the servants of King Hezekiah went to Isaiah, ⁶who replied, “Tell your master that 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 blasphemed Me. ⁷Behold, I will put a spirit in him so that he will hear a rumor and return to his own land, where I will cause him to fall by the sword.’”

W⁸hen the Rabshakeh heard that the king of Assyria had left Lachish, he withdrew and found the king fighting against Libnah. ⁹Now Sennacherib had been warned about Tirhakah king of Cush: “Look, he has set out to fight against you.”

¹⁰So Sennacherib again sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying, “Give this message to Hezekiah king of Judah: ¹¹‘Do not let your God, in whom you trust, deceive you by saying that Jerusalem will not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria. Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the other countries, devoting them to destruction. Will you then be spared? ¹²Did the gods of the nations destroyed by my fathers rescue those nations— the gods of Gozan, Haran, and Rezeph, and of the people of Eden in Telassar? ¹³Where are the kings of Hamath, Arpad, Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?’”

S¹⁴o Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers, read it, and went up to the house of the LORD and spread it out before the LORD. ¹⁵And Hezekiah prayed before the LORD: ¹⁶“O LORD, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You made the heavens and the earth. Incline Your ear, O LORD, and hear; open Your eyes, O LORD, and see. Listen to the words that Sennacherib has sent to defy the living God.

¹⁷Truly, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste these nations and their lands. ¹⁸They have cast their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods, but only wood and stone — the work of human hands. ¹⁹And now, O LORD our God, please save us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone, O LORD, are God.”

T²⁰hen Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah: “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I have heard your prayer concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria. ²¹This is the word that the LORD has spoken against him: ²²Whom have you taunted and blasphemed? ²³Through your servants you have taunted the Lord, ²⁴I have dug wells ²⁵Have you not heard? ²⁶Therefore their inhabitants, devoid of power, ²⁷But I know your sitting down, ²⁸Because your rage and arrogance against Me

²⁹And this will be a sign to you, O Hezekiah: ³⁰And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah ³¹For a remnant will go forth from Jerusalem,

³²So this is what the LORD says about the king of Assyria: ³³He will go back the way he came, ³⁴I will defend this city

A³⁵nd that very night the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 men in the camp of the Assyrians. When the people got up the next morning, there were all the dead bodies! ³⁶So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there. ³⁷One day, while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer put him to the sword and escaped to the land of Ararat. And his son Esar-haddon reigned in his place.