2 Kings 18: 1 - 19: 37
| 1Now in the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign. 2He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abi the daughter of Zechariah. 3He did that which was right in the LORD’s eyes, according to all that David his father had done. 4He removed the high places, and broke the pillars, and cut down the Asherah. He also broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, because in those days the children of Israel burnt incense to it; and he called it Nehushtan. 5He trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel; so that after him was no one like him amongst all the kings of Judah, nor amongst them that were before him. 6For he joined with the LORD. He didn’t depart from following him, but kept his commandments, which the LORD commanded Moses. 7The LORD was with him. Wherever he went, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria, and didn’t serve him. 8He struck the Philistines to Gaza and its borders, from the tower of the watchmen to the fortified city. |
| 9In the fourth year of king Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria, and besieged it. 10At the end of three years they took it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken. 11The king of Assyria carried Israel away to Assyria, and put them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes, 12because they didn’t obey the LORD their God’s voice, but transgressed his covenant, even all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded, and would not hear it or do it. |
| 13Now in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah, and took them. 14Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria to Lachish, saying, “I have offended you. Return from me. That which you put on me, I will bear.” The king of Assyria appointed to Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. 15Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the LORD’s house, and in the treasures of the king’s house. 16At that time, Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors of the LORD’s temple, and from the pillars which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria. |
| 17The king of Assyria sent Tartan and Rabsaris and Rabshakeh from Lachish to king Hezekiah with a great army to Jerusalem. They went up and came to Jerusalem. When they had come up, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is in the highway of the fuller’s field. 18When they had called to the king, Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebnah the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder came out to them. 19Rabshakeh said to them, “Say now to Hezekiah, ‘The great king, the king of Assyria, says, “What confidence is this in which you trust? 20You say (but they are but vain words), ‘There is counsel and strength for war.’ Now on whom do you trust, that you have rebelled against me? 21Now, behold, you trust in the staff of this bruised reed, even in Egypt. If a man leans on it, it will go into his hand, and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust on him. 22But if you tell me, ‘We trust in the LORD our God;’ isn’t that he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem?’ 23Now therefore, please give pledges to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them. 24How then can you turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master’s servants, and put your trust on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? 25Have I now come up without the LORD against this place to destroy it? the LORD said to me, ‘Go up against this land, and destroy it.’”’” |
| 26Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, Shebnah, and Joah, said to Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in the Syrian language, for we understand it. Don’t speak with us in the Jews’ language, in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.” |
| 27But Rabshakeh said to them, “Has my master sent me to your master and to you, to speak these words? Hasn’t he sent me to the men who sit on the wall, to eat their own dung, and to drink their own urine with you?” 28Then Rabshakeh stood, and cried with a loud voice in the Jews’ language, and spoke, saying, “Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria. 29The king says, ‘Don’t let Hezekiah deceive you; for he will not be able to deliver you out of his hand. 30Don’t let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD, saying, “The LORD will surely deliver us, and this city shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” 31Don’t listen to Hezekiah.’ For the king of Assyria says, ‘Make your peace with me, and come out to me; and everyone of you eat from his own vine, and everyone from his own fig tree, and everyone drink water from his own cistern; 32until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and of honey, that you may live, and not die. Don’t listen to Hezekiah, when he persuades you, saying, “The LORD will deliver us.” 33Has any of the gods of the nations ever delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? 34Where are the gods of Hamath, and of Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? 35Who are they amongst all the gods of the countries, that have delivered their country out of my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’” |
| 36But the people stayed quiet, and answered him not a word; for the king’s commandment was, “Don’t answer him.” 37Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, came with Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder, to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him Rabshakeh’s words. |
| 1When king Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the LORD’s house. 2He sent Eliakim, who was over the household, Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz. 3They said to him, “Hezekiah says, ‘Today is a day of trouble, of rebuke, and of rejection; for the children have come to the point of birth, and there is no strength to deliver them. 4It may be the LORD your God will hear all the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master has sent to defy the living God, and will rebuke the words which the LORD your God has heard. Therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.’” |
| 5So the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah. 6Isaiah said to them, “Tell your master this: ‘The LORD says, “Don’t be afraid of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. 7Behold, I will put a spirit in him, and he will hear news, and will return to his own land. I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.”’” |
| 8So Rabshakeh returned and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah; for he had heard that he had departed from Lachish. 9When he heard it said of Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, “Behold, he has come out to fight against you, he sent messengers again to Hezekiah, saying, 10‘Tell Hezekiah king of Judah this: “Don’t let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. 11Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly. Will you be delivered? 12Have the gods of the nations delivered them, which my fathers have destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the children of Eden who were in Telassar? 13Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivvah?”’” |
| 14Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it. Then Hezekiah went up to the LORD’s house, and spread it before the LORD. 15Hezekiah prayed before the LORD, and said, “LORD, the God of Israel, who are enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, even you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. 16Incline your ear, LORD, and hear. Open your eyes, LORD, and see. Hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to defy the living God. 17Truly, LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands, 18and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. Therefore they have destroyed them. 19Now therefore, LORD our God, save us, I beg you, out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, LORD, are God alone.” |
| 20Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “The LORD, the God of Israel, says ‘You have prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria, and I have heard you. 21This is the word that the LORD has spoken concerning him: ‘The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and ridiculed you. The daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head at you. 22Whom have you defied and blasphemed? Against whom have you exalted your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel! 23By your messengers, you have defied the Lord, and have said, “With the multitude of my chariots, I have come up to the height of the mountains, to the innermost parts of Lebanon, and I will cut down its tall cedars and its choice cypress trees; and I will enter into his farthest lodging place, the forest of his fruitful field. 24I have dug and drunk strange waters, and I will dry up all the rivers of Egypt with the sole of my feet.” 25Haven’t you heard how I have done it long ago, and formed it of ancient times? Now I have brought it to pass, that it should be yours to lay waste fortified cities into ruinous heaps. 26Therefore their inhabitants had little power. They were dismayed and confounded. They were like the grass of the field, and like the green herb, like the grass on the housetops, and like grain blasted before it has grown up. 27But I know your sitting down, your going out, your coming in, and your raging against me. 28Because of your raging against me, and because your arrogance has 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 by the way by which you came.’ |
| 29“This will be the sign to you: This year, you will eat that which grows of itself, and in the second year that which springs from that; and in the third year sow, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat its fruit. 30The remnant that has escaped of the house of Judah will again take root downward, and bear fruit upward. 31For out of Jerusalem a remnant will go out, and out of Mount Zion those who shall escape. The LORD’s zeal will perform this. |
| 32“Therefore the LORD says concerning the king of Assyria, ‘He will not come to this city, nor shoot an arrow there. He will not come before it with shield, nor cast up a mound against it. 33He will return the same way that he came, and he will not come to this city,’ says the LORD. 34‘For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake, and for my servant David’s sake.’” |
| 35That night, the LORD’s angel went out, and struck one hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians. When men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. 36So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and lived at Nineveh. 37As he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. Esar Haddon his son reigned in his place. |
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