¶ When king Hezekiah heard that, he rent his clothes and put on sack, and went into the house of the LORD.
Furthermore he sent Eliakim steward of the household and Sobnah the scribe, and the elders of the Priests clothed in sack, to Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz.
And they said to him, thus sayeth Hezekiah: this day is a day of tribulation, rebuking and railing. Even as when the children are ready to be born, and the mothers have no power to be delivered.
Oh that the LORD thy God would hear all the words of Rabsakeh whom the king of Assiria his master hath sent to rail on the living God, and to rebuke him with words which the LORD thy God hath heard. Wherefore lift up thy prayer for the remnant that are left.
When the servants of king Hezekiah were come to Isaiah:
Isaiah said to them: So shall we say to your master. Thus sayeth the LORD: be not afraid of the words thou heardest, with which the young men of the king of Assiria have railed on me.
For I will send him a blast that he shall hear tidings, and so return to his own land: And I will overthrow him with the sword even in his own land.
¶ And Rabsakeh went back again and found the king of Assiria fighting against Lobnah: for he had heard how that he was departed from Lachis.
And he heard tidings of Therhakah king of the black Moors, how that he was come out to fight against him. And thereupon he departed and sent messengers unto Hezekiah saying.
Thus say to Hezekiah king of Iuda, let not thy God carry thee out of the way, in whom thou so trustest saying: Ierusalem shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assiria.
Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of Assiria have done to all lands, how they have utterly destroyed them. And how then shouldest thou escape?
hath the gods of the heathen delivered them which mine ancestries have destroyed: as Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the children of Eden which were in Thelasar?
where is the king of Hemath, the king of Arphad, the king of the city of Sepharuaim, and the king of Ana and the king of Auah?
When Hezekiah had received the letter of the hand of the messenger and had read it: he went into the house of the LORD and laid it abroad before the LORD.
And Hezekiah prayed before the LORD and said: LORD God of Israel which dwellest between the Cherubs, thou art God alone over all the kingdoms of the earth, and thou hast made both heaven and earth.
LORD, bow thine ears and hear: Open LORD thine eyes and see: and hear the words of Sennaherib which hath sent to rail on the living God.
But of a truth, LORD, the kings of Assiria have destroyed nations and their lands,
and have set fire on their gods. For they were no Gods, but the work of the hands of man: even wood and stone. And therefore they destroyed them.
Now therefore LORD our God, save thou us out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know, that thou LORD art God alone.
¶ And Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah saying: thus sayeth the LORD God of Israel, that thou hast prayed to me concerning Sennaherib king of Assiria, I have heard it.
This is the thing that the LORD sayeth of him: he hath despised thee, O virgin daughter of Sihon: he hath shaked his head at thee, thou daughter of Ierusalem:
whom hast thou railed on, and whom hast thou reviled? Against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and hast lift up thine eyes so high? Even against the holy of Israel.
By the hand of thy messengers thou hast railed on the Lord and said: with the multitude of my chariots I am come up to the height of the mountains even along by the sides of Libanon, and have cut off the high Cedar trees and the lusty fir trees thereof even to the wood of Carmel that belongeth thereto.
I have digged and drunk strange waters, and have dried up with the soles of my feet pools enclosed.
But hast thou not heard how I have ordained such a thing a great while ago, and have prepared it from the beginning? And now I bring it forth and it shall be to destroy and to bring strong cities in to rude heaps of stones.
And the inhabiters of them shall be of little power, and faint hearted and confounded. They shall be like the grass of the field and green herbs, and as the hay on the tops of the houses which withereth or it come to any height.
I wote where thou dwellest, and thy coming out and going in know I too, and how thou settest up thy bristles against me.
And because thou settest up thy bristles against me, and that thy raging is come up to mine ears: therefore I will put a ring in thy nose and a bit in thy lips, and will bring thee back again the same way thou camest.
And this shall be a sign unto thee: eat this year of the fruits of the seed that fell out, and the next year, that waxeth of itself. And the third year sow ye and reap, plant vineyards and eat the fruits thereof.
For the daughter of Iuda that is escaped and left, shall yet again take rooting downward and bear fruit upward.
For out of Ierusalem shall go a remnant, and a number that shall escape out of mount Sion: the zeal of the LORD of Hosts shall bring this thing to pass.
Wherefore thus sayeth the LORD, of the king of Assiria: he shall not come to this city, nor shoot arrow into it, nor come before with shield nor cast any bank against it:
but shall go back again the way he came, and shall not come at his city sayeth the LORD.
For I will defend this city and save it, for mine own sake and for David my servant's sake.
¶ And the self same night the Angel of the LORD went out and smote in the Host of the Assirians an hundredth and four score and five thousand. And when they were up early in the morning: behold, they were all dead corpses.
And so Sennaherib king of Assiria avoided and departed and went again, and dwelt at Nineveh.
And as he was in his devotion kneeling in the house of Nisroch his God, Adramelech and Sarafar smote him with the sword. And they escaped into the land of Ararat, and Asarhadon his son reigned in his stead.
Praise the Everlasting Lord for His Faithful Word.