Hezekiah sends messengers to the prophet Isaiah
1When King Hezekiah heard what his 3 officials said, he tore his clothes, put on sack-cloth and went to the temple of the Lord. 2The king sent the officials Eliakim and Shebna and the leaders of the priests to the prophet Isaiah, the son of Amoz. They were all wearing sack-cloth. 3They said to Isaiah: ‘King Hezekiah says today is a very bad day. The Lord is punishing us and it seems as if the Lord has gone away from us. It is like when a baby is ready to be born, but his mother is not strong enough, and she is too weak to have the baby. 4The king of Assyria sent his chief_officers to say bad things about the living God. The Lord your God heard what they said. Maybe your God will punish the king of Assyria because he said that. There are not many of us who are still_alive, but please pray for us.’
5When the officials of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah, 6Isaiah said to them: ‘You must tell your king that the Lord says: “Hezekiah, you have heard the officers of the king of Assyria say bad things about Me, but you must not worry about what they said. 7I will make the king of Assyria scared. He will get a message and he will go back to his own land. In his land someone will kill him with a sword.” ’
The king of Assyria sends messengers to Hezekiah again
8They told the chief_officer of Assyria that his king had gone away from the town of Lachish to go to war_against the town of Libnah. The chief officer went to Libnah to meet the king. 9He told the king that King Tirhakah of Cush had come to make war_against him. When the king heard this, he sent messengers 10to tell King Hezekiah of Judah: ‘Hezekiah, you believe in your God, but you must not listen to Him or let Him lie to you. Your God says that the king of Assyria will not defeat Jerusalem, but that is not_true. 11They have told you what the king of Assyria has done with all the other lands. He has destroyed them all. Who will save you? 12Did the gods of the other nations save them when my forefathers defeated them? No. My forefathers defeated all the people of the towns of Gozan and Haran, and the people of the town of Rezeph, and the people of the land of Eden who live in Tel-Assar. 13Where are the kings of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the kings from the towns of Sepharvaim, Hena and Ivvah? They are gone, dead.’
Hezekiah prays in the temple
14Hezekiah took the letters that the messengers gave him and he read them. Then he went to the temple and he put the letters down before the Lord. 15Hezekiah prayed to the Lord and said: ‘Lord, God of Israel, your throne is above the cherub-angels. You alone are God of all lands on earth. You have made heaven and earth. 16Please listen to me. Please listen and see what Sennacherib says. He sent messages and said bad things about You, the living God. 17Lord, the kings of Assyria have destroyed all the other nations and lands, it is true. 18They took the gods of those nations and threw them into the fire. But those idols were not_real gods. They were made by people from wood and stone. That is why those gods are gone, and they have disappeared. 19And now, Lord, our God, please protect us from the king of Assyria. Do this so that everyone on earth may know that You alone are the Lord God.’
Isaiah sends a message to Hezekiah
20Isaiah, son of Amoz, sent a message to Hezekiah. Isaiah said: ‘The Lord, the God of Israel, said: “I have heard what you have said in your prayers about Sennacherib, the king of Assyria. 21This is what the Lord says about Sennacherib:
Sennacherib, the people of Jerusalem
laugh at you.
They think you are useless.
The people of Jerusalem
laugh at you and mock you
because you must go away now.
22Do you know to whom you said
those bad things?
At whom were you shouting
and against whom did you boast?
It was against the holy God of Israel.
23You have sent officers
to say bad things about God.
You said you have climbed the highest mountains,
and you have ridden your war-chariots
to the top of the Lebanon mountains.
You have cut down the biggest cedar trees
and the most beautiful cypress trees
on the mountain.
You have been to the top of the mountain
where the most trees are.
24You said you have dug water-wells
and have drunk water in other lands.
When you walked through the rivers of Egypt,
all the rivers became dry.
25But you must know that I had decided
a long time ago that you would do that.
Long ago I, the Lord, said
that it must be like that,
and now I have made it happen.
That is why you could destroy those towns,
cities that have strong walls.
Those towns are now only heaps of stones.
26The people who lived in those towns
were not strong.
They were afraid,
and they did not know what to do.
They were like plants in the field,
like green bushes,
and like grass on the flat roof of a house.
The grass gets dry and dies
before it can grow.
27Sennacherib, I know everything that you do,
and when you sit down or come or go.
I know what you have said against Me.
28Yes, I heard what you said about Me,
and I heard how proud you were
when you boasted against Me.
That is why I will put a hook through your nose
and I will put a bit in your mouth.
I will lead you like a horse
in the same way that you came here.
29And Hezekiah, I will give you a sign: This year you will eat the wheat that you did not sow and next year as well. But the year after that you will sow wheat and harvest it, and you will plant vineyards and eat grapes. 30The people of Judah who are still_alive will be like plants with strong roots in the ground, that have lots of fruit. 31Yes, people will come from Jerusalem, from Mount_Zion, all the people who are still_alive. This will happen because the Lord who rules over all will not leave or forget the people of Judah. 32That is why I, the Lord, say these words about the king of Assyria:
He will not come into this city,
and he will not shoot his bow_and_arrow here.
He will not take his shield to protect himself.
He will not build up sand against the walls
of the city or climb over them.
33He will go back on the road that he came on,
and he will not come into this city.
This is what I, the Lord, am saying:
34I will protect this city and save it.
I will do it for Myself
and for my servant, David.” ’
King Sennacherib dies
35That night the Angel_of_the_Lord came and He killed 185 000 soldiers in the camp of the Assyrians. When the other Assyrians got up early the next morning, all the dead soldiers lay there. 36King Sennacherib of Assyria took his other soldiers and he went back to the city of Nineveh and stayed there. 37One day he went into the temple of his god Nisrok and he lay there to pray. His sons, Adrammelek and Sharezer, killed him with swords. They fled to the land of Ararat and Sennacherib's son, Esarhaddon, became king after him.
