2 Kings 19-21

English Standard Version

Isaiah Reassures Hezekiah

19 ^(A)As soon as King Hezekiah heard it, ^(B)he tore his clothes and ^(C)covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the Lord. ² And he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and the senior priests, ^(D)covered with sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz. ³ 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. ^4 (E)It may be that the Lord your God heard all the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent ^(F)to mock the living God, and will rebuke the words that the Lord your God has heard; therefore lift up your prayer for ^(G)the remnant that is left.” ⁵ When the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah, ⁶ 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 ^(H)the servants of the king of Assyria have ^(I)reviled me. ⁷ Behold, I will put a spirit in him, so that ^(J)he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land, and I will make him ^(K)fall by the sword in his own land.’”

Sennacherib Defies the Lord

⁸ The Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria fighting against ^(L)Libnah, for he heard that the king had left ^(M)Lachish. ^9 (N)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, ¹⁰ “Thus shall you speak to Hezekiah king of Judah: ‘Do not let your God ^(O)in whom you trust deceive you by promising that ^(P)Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. ¹¹ Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, devoting them to destruction. And shall you be delivered? ^12 (Q)Have the gods of the nations delivered them, the nations that my fathers destroyed, ^(R)Gozan, ^(S)Haran, Rezeph, and the people of ^(T)Eden who were in Telassar? ^13 (U)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's Prayer

¹⁴ Hezekiah received ^(V)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. ¹⁵ And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord and said: “O Lord, the God of Israel, ^(W)enthroned above the cherubim, ^(X)you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. ^16 (Y)Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear; ^(Z)open your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent ^(AA)to mock the living God. ¹⁷ Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands ¹⁸ and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, ^(AB)but the work of men's hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed. ¹⁹ So now, O Lord our God, save us, please, from his hand, ^(AC)that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that ^(AD)you, O Lord, are God alone.”

Isaiah Prophesies Sennacherib's Fall

²⁰ 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 ^(AE)I have heard. ²¹ This is the word that the Lord has spoken concerning him:

²⁹ “And this shall be ^(AV)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. ^30 (AW)And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward. ³¹ For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and out of Mount Zion ^(AX)a band of survivors. ^(AY)The zeal of the Lord will do this.

³² “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 ^(AZ)cast up a siege mound against it. ^33 (BA)By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, declares the Lord. ^34 (BB)For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake ^(BC)and for the sake of my servant David.”

³⁵ And that night ^(BD)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. ³⁶ Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went home and lived at ^(BE)Nineveh. ³⁷ And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, ^(BF)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.

Hezekiah's Illness and Recovery

20 ^(BG)In those days ^(BH)Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, “Thus says the Lord, ^(BI)‘Set your house in order, for you shall die; you shall not recover.’” ² Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, saying, ³ “Now, O Lord, ^(BJ)please remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and ^(BK)with a whole heart, ^(BL)and have done what is good in your sight.” ^(BM)And Hezekiah wept bitterly. ⁴ And before Isaiah had gone out of the middle court, the word of the Lord came to him: ⁵ “Turn back, and say to Hezekiah ^(BN)the leader of my people, Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father: ^(BO)I have heard your prayer; ^(BP)I have seen your tears. Behold, I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of the Lord, ⁶ and I will add fifteen years to your life. I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, ^(BQ)and I will defend this city for my own sake and for my servant David's sake.” ⁷ And Isaiah said, “Bring a cake of figs. And let them take and lay it on the boil, that he may recover.”

⁸ And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “What shall be the sign that the Lord will heal me, and that I shall go up to the house of the Lord on the third day?” ⁹ And Isaiah said, “This shall be ^(BR)the sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing that he has promised: shall the shadow go forward ten steps, or go back ten steps?” ¹⁰ And Hezekiah answered, “It is an easy thing for the shadow ^(BS)to lengthen ten steps. Rather let the shadow go back ten steps.” ¹¹ And Isaiah the prophet called to the Lord, ^(BT)and he brought the shadow back ten steps, by which it had gone down on the steps of Ahaz.

Hezekiah and the Babylonian Envoys

^12 (BU)At that time ^(BV)Merodach-baladan the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, ^(BW)sent envoys with letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he heard that Hezekiah had been sick. ¹³ And Hezekiah welcomed them, and he showed them ^(BX)all his treasure house, the silver, the gold, the spices, the precious oil, his armory, all that was found in his storehouses. There was nothing in his house or in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them. ¹⁴ Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah, and said to him, “What did these men say? And from where did they come to you?” And Hezekiah said, “They have come from a far country, from Babylon.” ¹⁵ He said, “What have they seen in your house?” And Hezekiah answered, “They have seen all that is in my house; there is nothing in my storehouses that I did not show them.”

¹⁶ Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord: ¹⁷ Behold, the days are coming, when ^(BY)all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord. ^18 (BZ)And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, ^(CA)and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.” ¹⁹ Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, ^(CB)“The word of the Lord that you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “Why not, if there will be peace and security in my days?”

^20 (CC)The rest of the deeds of Hezekiah and all his might and how he made ^(CD)the pool and the conduit ^(CE)and brought water into the city, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? ^21 (CF)And Hezekiah slept with his fathers, and Manasseh his son reigned in his place.

Manasseh Reigns in Judah

21 ^(CG)Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hephzibah. ² And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, ^(CH)according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. ³ For he rebuilt the high places ^(CI)that Hezekiah his father had destroyed, and he erected altars for Baal and made ^(CJ)an Asherah, ^(CK)as Ahab king of Israel had done, ^(CL)and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them. ^4 (CM)And he built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, ^(CN)“In Jerusalem will I put my name.” ⁵ And he built altars ^(CO)for all the host of heaven in ^(CP)the two courts of the house of the Lord. ^6 (CQ)And he burned his son as an offering^[a] and ^(CR)used fortune-telling and ^(CS)omens and dealt ^(CT)with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. ⁷ And the carved image of ^(CU)Asherah that he had made he set in the house of which the Lord said to David and to Solomon his son, “In this house, ^(CV)and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever. ^8 (CW)And I will not cause the feet of Israel to wander anymore out of the land that I gave to their fathers, if only they will be careful to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the Law that my servant Moses commanded them.” ⁹ But they did not listen, and Manasseh led them astray to do more evil than the nations had done whom the Lord destroyed before the people of Israel.

Manasseh's Idolatry Denounced

¹⁰ And the Lord said by his servants the prophets, ^11 (CX)“Because Manasseh king of Judah has committed these abominations and has done things ^(CY)more evil than all that the Amorites did, who were before him, ^(CZ)and has made Judah also to sin ^(DA)with his idols, ¹² therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Behold, I am bringing upon Jerusalem and Judah such disaster^[b] that the ears of everyone who hears of it ^(DB)will tingle. ^13 (DC)And I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria, and the plumb line of the house of Ahab, and I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. ¹⁴ And I will forsake the remnant of my heritage and give them into the hand of their enemies, and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies, ¹⁵ because they have done what is evil in my sight and have provoked me to anger, since the day their fathers came out of Egypt, even to this day.”

^16 (DD)Moreover, Manasseh shed very much innocent blood, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another, besides the sin ^(DE)that he made Judah to sin so that they did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.

^17 (DF)Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh and all that he did, and the sin that he committed, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? ^18 (DG)And Manasseh slept with his fathers and was buried in the garden of his house, ^(DH)in the garden of Uzza, and Amon his son reigned in his place.

Amon Reigns in Judah

¹⁹ Amon was twenty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Meshullemeth the daughter of Haruz of Jotbah. ²⁰ And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, ^(DI)as Manasseh his father had done. ²¹ He walked in all the way in which his father walked and served ^(DJ)the idols that his father served and worshiped them. ^22 (DK)He abandoned the Lord, the God of his fathers, and did not walk in the way of the Lord. ²³ And the servants of Amon conspired against him and put the king to death in his house. ²⁴ But the people of the land struck down all those who had conspired against King Amon, and the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his place. ²⁵ Now the rest of the acts of Amon that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? ²⁶ And he was buried in his tomb ^(DL)in the garden of Uzza, and Josiah his son reigned in his place.