Isaiah Foretells Deliverance(A)
37 And it came to pass when King Hezekiah heard it that he tore his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord. 2 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 They said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah: This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of blasphemy. For children have come to birth, and there is no strength to bring them forth. 4 Perhaps the Lord your God will hear the words of the Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master has sent to reproach the living God, and will reprove the words which the Lord your God has heard. Therefore, lift up a prayer for the remnant that is left.”
5 So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah. 6 Isaiah said to them, “Thus you shall say to your master, ‘Thus says the Lord: Do not be afraid of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me. 7 Listen! I will put a spirit in him so that he shall hear a rumor, and return to his own land. And I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.’ ”
8 So the Rabshakeh returned and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah. For he had heard that the king had left Lachish.
9 He heard them say concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, “He has come out to make war with you.” And when he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying, 10 “Thus you shall speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying: Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, ‘Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’ 11 Certainly you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands by utterly destroying them. So shall you be delivered? 12 Have the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed, even Gozan and Harran and Rezeph and the sons of Eden who were in Tel Assar? 13 Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the kings of the city of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?”
The Prayer of Hezekiah(B)
14 And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it. Then Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord. 15 Hezekiah prayed to the Lord, saying, 16 “O Lord of Hosts, God of Israel, who dwells above the cherubim, You are the God, even You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. 17 Incline Your ear, O Lord, and hear. Open Your eyes, O Lord, and see, and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God.
18 “Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their countries, 19 and have cast their gods into the fire. For they were not gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. Therefore, they have destroyed them. 20 Now, O Lord our God, save us from his hand that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone, Lord, are God.”
The Fall of Sennacherib(C)
21 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: Because you have prayed to Me about Sennacherib king of Assyria, 22 this is the word which the Lord has spoken against him:
The virgin daughter of Zion
has despised you and mocked you;
the daughter of Jerusalem
has shaken her head at you.
23 Whom have you reproached and blasphemed?
And against whom have you raised your voice,
and lifted up your eyes haughtily?
Against the Holy One of Israel!
24 Through your servants
you have reproached the Lord
and have said,
‘With my many chariots
I have come up to the heights of the mountains,
to the remotest parts of Lebanon;
and I cut down its tall cedars,
and its choice fir trees;
and I will go to its highest peak,
its thickest forest.
25 I have dug wells
and drunk water,
and with the sole of my feet
I have dried up all the rivers of Egypt.’
26 “Have you not heard?
Long ago I have done it,
from ancient times I have formed it.
Now I have brought it to pass,
that you should turn fortified cities
into ruinous heaps.
27 Therefore, their inhabitants were short of strength;
they were dismayed and humiliated;
they were as the grass of the field
and as the green herb,
as the grass on the housetops
is scorched before it is grown up.
28 “But I know your abode,
and your going out and your coming in,
and your rage against Me.
29 Because your rage against Me
and your tumult have come up into My ears,
therefore I will put My hook in your nose,
and My bridle in your lips,
and I will turn you back
on the way by which you came.
30 “This shall be a sign to you:
You shall eat this year what grows of itself,
and the second year what springs from the same,
and in the third year sow and reap
and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit.
31 The surviving remnant of the house of Judah
shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward.
32 For from Jerusalem shall go out a remnant,
and those who escape out of Mount Zion.
The zeal of the Lord of Hosts
shall do this.
33 “Therefore, thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria:
He shall not come into this city,
nor shoot an arrow there,
nor come before it with shields,
nor build a siege ramp against it.
34 By the way that he came, by the same shall he return,
and shall not come into this city,
says the Lord.
35 For I will defend this city to save it
for My own sake and for the sake of My servant David.”
36 Then the angel of the Lord went out and struck one hundred eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians. When others woke up early in the morning, these were all dead bodies. 37 So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned home and lived in Nineveh.
38 It came to pass as he was worshipping in the house of Nisrok, his god, that Adrammelek and Sharezer, his sons, struck him with the sword, and they escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead.
Cross references
- Isaiah 37:1 : 2Ki 19:1–13
- Isaiah 37:14 : 2Ki 19:14–19
- Isaiah 37:21 : 2Ki 19:20–37; 2Ch 32:20–21
