As soon as King Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes and
covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the LORD.
And he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the
secretary, and the senior priests, covered with sackcloth, to the
prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz. They said to him, “Thus says
Hezekiah, This day is a day of distress, of rebuke, and of
disgrace; children have come to the point of birth, and there is no
strength to bring them forth. It may be that the LORD your God
heard all the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of
Assyria has sent to mock the living God, and will rebuke the words
that the LORD your God has heard; therefore lift up your prayer for
the remnant that is left.” When the servants of King Hezekiah came
to Isaiah, Isaiah said to them, “Say to your master, ‘Thus says the
LORD: Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard,
with which the servants of the king of Assyria have reviled me.
Behold, I will put a spirit in him, so that he shall hear a rumor
and return to his own land, and I will make him fall by the sword
in his own land.’”

  The Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria fighting
against Libnah, for he heard that the king had left Lachish. Now
the king heard concerning Tirhakah king of Cush, “Behold, he has
set out to fight against you.” So he sent messengers again to
Hezekiah, saying, “Thus shall you speak to Hezekiah king of Judah:
‘Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you by promising
that Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of
Assyria. Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done
to all lands, devoting them to destruction. And shall you be
delivered? Have the gods of the nations delivered them, the nations
that my fathers destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of
Eden who were in Telassar? Where is the king of Hamath, the king of
Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, the king of Hena, or the
king of Ivvah?’”

  Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and
read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the LORD and spread
it before the LORD. And Hezekiah prayed before the LORD and said:
“O LORD, the God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are
the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made
heaven and earth. Incline your ear, O LORD, and hear; open your
eyes, O LORD, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he
has sent to mock the living God. Truly, O LORD, the kings of
Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands 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 were destroyed. So now,
O LORD our God, save us, please, from his hand, that all the
kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O LORD, are God alone.”

  Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says
the LORD, the God of Israel: Your prayer to me about Sennacherib
king of Assyria I have heard. This is the word that the LORD has
spoken concerning him:

    “She despises you, she scorns you—
        the virgin daughter of Zion;
    she wags her head behind you—
        the daughter of Jerusalem.


    “Whom have you mocked and reviled?
        Against whom have you raised your voice
    and lifted your eyes to the heights?
        Against the Holy One of Israel!
    By your messengers you have mocked the Lord,
        and you have said, ‘With my many chariots
    I have gone up the heights of the mountains,
        to the far recesses of Lebanon;
    I felled its tallest cedars,
        its choicest cypresses;
    I entered its farthest lodging place,
        its most fruitful forest.
    I dug wells
        and drank foreign waters,
    and I dried up with the sole of my foot
        all the streams of Egypt.’


    “Have you not heard
        that I determined it long ago?
    I planned from days of old
        what now I bring to pass,
    that you should turn fortified cities
        into heaps of ruins,
    while their inhabitants, shorn of strength,
        are dismayed and confounded,
    and have become like plants of the field
        and like tender grass,
    like grass on the housetops,
        blighted before it is grown.


    “But I know your sitting down
        and your going out and coming in,
        and your raging against me.
    Because you have raged against me
        and your complacency has come into my ears,
    I will put my hook in your nose
        and my bit in your mouth,
    and I will turn you back on the way
        by which you came.


      “And this shall be the sign for you: this year eat what grows
of itself, and in the second year what springs of the same. Then in
the third year sow and reap and plant vineyards, and eat their
fruit. And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again
take root downward and bear fruit upward. For out of Jerusalem
shall go a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The
zeal of the LORD will do this.

  “Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria: He
shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow there, or come
before it with a shield or cast up a siege mound against it. By the
way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not
come into this city, declares the LORD. For I will defend this city
to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.”

  And that night the angel of the LORD went out and struck down
185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early
in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. Then
Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went home and lived at
Nineveh. And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god,
Adrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, struck him down with the sword
and escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son reigned
in his place.

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001
by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.