^12 (A)Why should the Egyptians speak, and say, ‘He brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your fierce wrath, and ^(B)relent from this harm to Your people.

¹⁰ “Thus you shall speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying: ‘Do not let your God ^(A)in whom you trust deceive you, saying, “Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” ¹¹ Look! You have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands by utterly destroying them; and shall you be delivered? ^12 (B)Have the gods of the nations delivered those whom my fathers have destroyed, Gozan and Haran and Rezeph, and the people of ^(C)Eden who were in Telassar? ^13 (D)Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah?’ ”

^14 (E)And Hezekiah received 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 Then Hezekiah prayed before the Lord, and said: “O Lord God of Israel, the One ^(F)who dwells between the cherubim, ^(G)You are God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. ^16 (H)Incline Your ear, O Lord, and hear; ^(I)open Your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, ^(J)which he has sent to reproach the living God. ¹⁷ Truly, 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 ^(K)not gods, but ^(L)the work of men’s hands—wood and stone. Therefore they destroyed them. ¹⁹ Now therefore, O Lord our God, I pray, save us from his hand, ^(M)that all the kingdoms of the earth may ^(N)know that You are the Lord God, You alone.”

¹⁵ Now if You kill these people as one man, then the nations which have heard of Your fame will speak, saying, ¹⁶ ‘Because the Lord was not ^(A)able to bring this people to the land which He swore to give them, therefore He killed them in the wilderness.’