ISAIAH 36-37

¹ In the 14th year of King Hez·e·kiʹah, Sen·nachʹer·ib the king of As·syrʹi·a came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.

² The king of As·syrʹi·a then sent the Rabʹsha·keh with a vast army from Laʹchish to King Hez·e·kiʹah in Jerusalem. They took up a position by the conduit of the upper pool, which is at the highway of the laundryman’s field.

³ Then E·liʹa·kim son of Hil·kiʹah, who was in charge of the household, Shebʹna the secretary, and Joʹah son of Aʹsaph the recorder came out to him.

⁴ So the Rabʹsha·keh said to them: “Please, say to Hez·e·kiʹah, ‘This is what the great king, the king of As·syrʹi·a, says: “What is the basis for your confidence?

⁵ You are saying, ‘I have a strategy and the power to wage war,’ but these are empty words. In whom have you put trust, so that you dare to rebel against me?

⁶ Look! You trust in the support of this crushed reed, Egypt, which if a man should lean on it would enter into his palm and pierce it. That is the way Pharʹaoh king of Egypt is to all those who trust in him.

⁷ And if you should say to me, ‘We trust in Jehovah our God,’ is he not the one whose high places and altars Hez·e·kiʹah has removed, while he says to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You should bow down before this altar’?”’

⁸ So now make this wager, please, with my lord the king of As·syrʹi·a: I will give you 2,000 horses if you are able to find enough riders for them.

⁹ How, then, could you drive back even one governor who is the least of my lord’s servants, while you put your trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?

¹⁰ Now is it without authorization from Jehovah that I have come up against this land to destroy it? Jehovah himself said to me, ‘Go up against this land and destroy it.’”

¹¹ At this E·liʹa·kim and Shebʹna and Joʹah said to the Rabʹsha·keh: “Speak to your servants, please, in the Ar·a·maʹic language, for we can understand it; do not speak to us in the language of the Jews in the hearing of the people on the wall.”

¹² But the Rabʹsha·keh said: “Is it just to your lord and to you that my lord sent me to speak these words? Is it not also to the men who sit on the wall, those who will eat their own excrement and drink their own urine along with you?”

¹³ Then the Rabʹsha·keh stood and called out loudly in the language of the Jews, saying: “Hear the word of the great king, the king of As·syrʹi·a.

¹⁴ This is what the king says, ‘Do not let Hez·e·kiʹah deceive you, for he is not able to rescue you.

¹⁵ And do not let Hez·e·kiʹah cause you to trust in Jehovah by saying: “Jehovah will surely rescue us, and this city will not be given into the hand of the king of As·syrʹi·a.”

¹⁶ Do not listen to Hez·e·kiʹah, for this is what the king of As·syrʹi·a says: “Make peace with me and surrender, and each of you will eat from his own vine and from his own fig tree and will drink the water of his own cistern,

¹⁷ until I come and take you to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards.

¹⁸ Do not let Hez·e·kiʹah mislead you by saying, ‘Jehovah will rescue us.’ Have any of the gods of the nations rescued their land out of the hand of the king of As·syrʹi·a?

¹⁹ Where are the gods of Haʹmath and Arʹpad? Where are the gods of Seph·ar·vaʹim? And have they rescued Sa·marʹi·a out of my hand?

²⁰ Who among all the gods of these lands have rescued their land out of my hand, so that Jehovah should rescue Jerusalem out of my hand?”’”

²¹ But they kept silent and did not say a word to him in reply, for the order of the king was, “You must not answer him.”

²² But E·liʹa·kim son of Hil·kiʹah, who was in charge of the household, Shebʹna the secretary, and Joʹah son of Aʹsaph the recorder came to Hez·e·kiʹah with their garments ripped apart and told him the words of the Rabʹsha·keh.

¹ As soon as King Hez·e·kiʹah heard this, he ripped his garments apart and covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of Jehovah.

² Then he sent E·liʹa·kim, who was in charge of the household, Shebʹna the secretary, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah, the son of Aʹmoz.

³ They said to him: “This is what Hez·e·kiʹah says, ‘This day is a day of distress, of rebuke, and of disgrace; for the children are ready to be born, but there is no strength to give birth.

⁴ Perhaps Jehovah your God will hear the words of the Rabʹsha·keh, whom the king of As·syrʹi·a his lord sent to taunt the living God, and he will call him to account for the words that Jehovah your God has heard. So offer up a prayer in behalf of the remnant who have survived.’”

⁵ So the servants of King Hez·e·kiʹah went in to Isaiah,

⁶ and Isaiah said to them: “This is what you should say to your lord, ‘This is what Jehovah says: “Do not be afraid because of the words that you heard, the words with which the attendants of the king of As·syrʹi·a blasphemed me.

⁷ Here I am putting a thought in his mind, and he will hear a report and return to his own land; and I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.”’”

⁸ After the Rabʹsha·keh heard that the king of As·syrʹi·a had pulled away from Laʹchish, he returned to him and found him fighting against Libʹnah.

⁹ Now the king heard it said about King Tir·haʹkah of E·thi·oʹpi·a: “He has come out to fight against you.” When he heard this, he sent messengers again to Hez·e·kiʹah, saying:

¹⁰ “This is what you should say to King Hez·e·kiʹah of Judah, ‘Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you by saying: “Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of As·syrʹi·a.”

¹¹ Look! You have heard what the kings of As·syrʹi·a did to all the lands by devoting them to destruction. Will you alone be rescued?

¹² Did the gods of the nations that my forefathers destroyed rescue them? Where are Goʹzan, Haʹran, Reʹzeph, and the people of Eʹden who were in Tel-asʹsar?

¹³ Where is the king of Haʹmath, the king of Arʹpad, and the king of the cities of Seph·ar·vaʹim, and of Heʹna, and of Ivʹvah?’”

¹⁴ Hez·e·kiʹah took the letters out of the hand of the messengers and read them. Hez·e·kiʹah then went up to the house of Jehovah and spread them out before Jehovah.

¹⁵ And Hez·e·kiʹah began to pray to Jehovah and say:

¹⁶ “O Jehovah of armies, the God of Israel, sitting enthroned above the cherubs, you alone are the true God of all the kingdoms of the earth. You made the heavens and the earth.

¹⁷ Incline your ear, O Jehovah, and hear! Open your eyes, O Jehovah, and see! Hear all the words that Sen·nachʹer·ib has sent to taunt the living God.

¹⁸ It is a fact, O Jehovah, that the kings of As·syrʹi·a have devastated all the lands, as well as their own land.

¹⁹ And they have thrown their gods into the fire, because they were not gods but the work of human hands, wood and stone. That is why they could destroy them.

²⁰ But now, O Jehovah our God, save us out of his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are God, O Jehovah.”

²¹ Isaiah son of Aʹmoz then sent this message to Hez·e·kiʹah: “This is what Jehovah the God of Israel says, ‘Because you prayed to me concerning King Sen·nachʹer·ib of As·syrʹi·a,

²² The daughter of Jerusalem shakes her head at you.

²³ It is against the Holy One of Israel!

²⁴ I will enter its highest retreats, its densest forests.

²⁵ I will dry up the streams of Egypt with the soles of my feet.’

²⁶ You will turn fortified cities into desolate piles of ruins.

²⁷ As grass of the roofs that is scorched by the east wind.

²⁸ And when you are enraged against me,

²⁹ And I will lead you back the way you came.”

³⁰ “‘And this will be the sign for you: This year you will eat what grows on its own; and in the second year, you will eat grain that sprouts from that; but in the third year you will sow seed and reap, and you will plant vineyards and eat their fruitage.

³¹ Those of the house of Judah who escape, those who are left, will take root downward and produce fruit upward.

³² For a remnant will go out of Jerusalem and survivors from Mount Zion. The zeal of Jehovah of armies will do this.

³³ Or cast up a siege rampart against it.”’

³⁴ He will not come into this city,’ declares Jehovah.

³⁵ And for the sake of my servant David.’”

³⁶ And the angel of Jehovah went out and struck down 185,000 men in the camp of the As·syrʹi·ans. When people rose up early in the morning, they saw all the dead bodies.

³⁷ So King Sen·nachʹer·ib of As·syrʹi·a departed and returned to Ninʹe·veh and stayed there.

³⁸ And as he was bowing down at the house of his god Nisʹroch, his own sons A·dramʹme·lech and Shar·eʹzer struck him down with the sword and then escaped to the land of Arʹa·rat. And his son Eʹsar-hadʹdon became king in his place.