2 Kings 19:14-37
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
14 Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it; then he went up to the house of the Lord, and spreading it out before the Lord, 15 Hezekiah prayed in the Lord’s presence: “Lord, God of Israel, enthroned on the cherubim! You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. It is you who made the heavens and the earth.(A) 16 Incline your ear, Lord, and listen! Open your eyes, Lord, and see! Hear the words Sennacherib has sent to taunt the living God. 17 Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands. 18 They gave their gods to the fire—they were not gods at all, but the work of human hands—wood and stone, they destroyed them. 19 Therefore, Lord, our God, save us from this man’s power, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone, Lord, are God.”(B)
20 Then Isaiah, son of Amoz, sent this message to Hezekiah: “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, to whom you have prayed concerning Sennacherib, king of Assyria: I have listened! 21 [a]This is the word the Lord has spoken concerning him:
She despises you, laughs you to scorn,
the virgin daughter Zion!
Behind you she wags her head,
daughter Jerusalem.
22 Whom have you insulted and blasphemed,
at whom have you raised your voice
And lifted up your eyes on high?
At the Holy One of Israel!
23 Through the mouths of your messengers
you insulted the Lord when you said,
‘With my many chariots I went up
to the tops of the peaks,
to the recesses of Lebanon,
To cut down its lofty cedars,
its choice cypresses;
I reached to the farthest shelter,
the forest ranges.
24 I myself dug wells
and drank foreign waters,
Drying up all the rivers of Egypt
beneath the soles of my feet.’
25 “Have you not heard?
A long time ago I prepared it,
from days of old I planned it.
Now I have brought it about:
You are here to reduce
fortified cities to heaps of ruins,
26 Their people powerless,
dismayed and distraught.
They are plants of the field,
green growth,
thatch on the rooftops,
Grain scorched by the east wind.
27 I know when you stand or sit,
when you come or go(C)
and how you rage against me.
28 Because you rage against me,
and your smugness has reached my ears,
I will put my hook in your nose
and my bit in your mouth,
And make you leave by the way you came.
29 “This shall be a sign for you:
This year you shall eat the aftergrowth,
next year, what grows of itself;
But in the third year, sow and reap,
plant vineyards and eat their fruit!
30 The remaining survivors of the house of Judah
shall again strike root below
and bear fruit above.
31 For out of Jerusalem shall come a remnant,
and from Mount Zion, survivors.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this.
32 “Therefore, thus says the Lord about the king:
He shall not come as far as this city,
nor shoot there an arrow,
nor confront it with a shield,
Nor cast up a siege-work against it.
33 By the way he came he shall leave,
never coming as far as this city,
oracle of the Lord.
34 I will shield and save this city
for my own sake and the sake of David my servant.”(D)
35 That night the angel of the Lord went forth and struck down one hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp. Early the next morning, there they were, dead, all those corpses!(E) 36 So Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, broke camp, departed, returned home, and stayed in Nineveh.
37 When he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword and fled into the land of Ararat. His son Esarhaddon reigned in his place.
Read full chapterFootnotes
- 19:21–31 Verses 21–28 are addressed to Sennacherib, vv. 29–31 to Judah.
Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.