Isaiah 37

Hezekiah Prays and Jerusalem Is Delivered

1When King Hezekiah heard this, he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the LORD’s house. 2He sent Eliakim the palace manager, Shebna the secretary, and the senior priests, all covered with sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. 3They said to him, “Hezekiah says: ‘This is a day of distress, rebuke, and disgrace. The children have reached the birth opening, but there is no strength to deliver them. 4Perhaps the LORD your God will hear the Rabshakeh’s words, sent by his master the king of Assyria to insult the living God, and will rebuke the words the LORD your God has heard. So lift up a prayer for the remnant still here.’” 5When King Hezekiah’s servants came to Isaiah, 6Isaiah told them, “Say to your master: ‘The LORD says: Do not fear the words you have heard, with which the king of Assyria’s attendants have blasphemed me. 7Look, I will put a spirit in him. He will hear a report and return to his own land, and there I will make him fall by the sword.’” 8The Rabshakeh returned and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah, for he had heard that the king had left Lachish. 9The king heard this report about Tirhakah king of Cush: “He has marched out to fight you.” When he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying, 10“Tell Hezekiah king of Judah: ‘Do not let the God you rely on deceive you by saying, “Jerusalem will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.”

11You have heard what Assyria’s kings have done to all the lands, devoting them to destruction. Will you be rescued? 12Did their gods rescue the nations my ancestors destroyed—Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden in Telassar? 13Where are the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?’” 14Hezekiah took the written message from the messengers and read it. He went up to the LORD’s house and spread it before the LORD. 15Hezekiah prayed to the LORD:

16“LORD of hosts, Israel’s God, enthroned above the cherubim, you alone are God over all earth’s kingdoms. You made heaven and earth. 17Incline your ear, LORD, and hear; open your eyes, LORD, and see. Hear all the words Sennacherib has sent to insult the living God. 18It is true, LORD: Assyria’s kings have laid waste all the countries and their lands. 19They threw their gods into the fire, for those were not gods, only work of human hands—wood and stone. So they destroyed them. 20Now, LORD our God, save us from his hand, so all earth’s kingdoms may know that you alone are the LORD.”

21Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent this message to Hezekiah: “The LORD, Israel’s God, says: ‘Because you have prayed to me about Sennacherib king of Assyria— 22this is the word the LORD has spoken against him:
“Virgin Daughter Zion despises you, mocks you;
Daughter Jerusalem shakes her head behind you. 23Whom have you insulted and blasphemed?
Against whom have you raised your voice
and lifted your eyes on high?
Against Israel’s Holy One! 24Through your servants you have insulted the Lord.
You said, ‘With my many chariots
I climbed the highest mountains, Lebanon’s farthest reaches.
I cut down its tallest cedars, its choicest cypresses;
I reached its remotest heights, its luxuriant forest. 25I dug and drank water;
with the soles of my feet
I dried up all Egypt’s streams.’

26Have you not heard?
Long ago I did it; in ancient days I formed it.
Now I have brought it about:
you turn fortified cities into ruined heaps. 27Their inhabitants, powerless, were terrified and ashamed,
like plants in a field, tender grass,
grass on rooftops, a field before it stands ripe. 28I know when you sit, when you go out and come in,
and how you rage against me. 29Because your rage against me
and your arrogance have reached my ears,
I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your lips,
and turn you back by the way you came.” 30“This will be your sign: This year eat what grows by itself, and in the second year what springs from that. In the third year sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

31The surviving remnant of Judah’s house
will again take root below and bear fruit above. 32For a remnant will come out of Jerusalem,
survivors from Mount Zion.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.” 33Therefore the LORD says about the king of Assyria:
“He will not enter this city,
shoot an arrow there,
approach it with a shield,
or heap up a siege ramp against it. 34By the way he came he will return;
he will not enter this city,” declares the LORD. 35“I will shield this city and save it,
for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.”’”

36The LORD’s angel went out and struck down 185,000 in the Assyrian camp. When people rose early in the morning, there lay all the dead bodies. 37Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp, left, and returned to Nineveh, where he stayed. 38As he worshiped in the house of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword. They escaped to Ararat, and his son Esarhaddon became king in his place.