Isaías 37

¹ And it happened when King Hezekiah heard it that he tore his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of Jehovah.

² And he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz.

³ And they said to him, Thus says Hezekiah, This day is a day of trouble and of rebuke and of blasphemy! For the children have come to the birth, and there is no strength to bring forth.

⁴ It may be that Jehovah your God will hear the words of Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to reproach the living God, and will reprove the words which Jehovah your God has heard. Therefore, lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.

⁵ So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah.

⁶ And Isaiah said to them, Thus shall you say to your master, Thus says Jehovah, Do not be afraid of the words which you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me.

⁷ Behold, I will send a spirit upon him, and he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land. And I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.

⁸ So Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah; for he had heard that he had departed from Lachish.

⁹ And he heard concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia saying, He has come out to wage war with you. And when he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,

¹⁰ Thus you shall say to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Do not let your God, in whom you trust, deceive you, saying, Jerusalem shall 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 by utterly destroying them. And shall you be delivered?

¹² Have the gods of the nations delivered those whom my fathers have destroyed: Gozan and Haran and Rezeph, and the sons of Eden who were in Telassar?

¹³ Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah?

¹⁴ And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messenger, and read it. And Hezekiah went up into the house of Jehovah and spread it before Jehovah.

¹⁵ And Hezekiah prayed to Jehovah, saying,

¹⁶ O Jehovah of Hosts, God of Israel, Who dwells between the cherubim, You are God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made the heavens and the earth.

¹⁷ Extend Your ear, O Jehovah, and hear; open Your eyes, O Jehovah, and see; and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to taunt the Living God.

¹⁸ Truly, O Jehovah, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their lands,

¹⁹ and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone; therefore they have destroyed them.

²⁰ Now therefore, O Jehovah our God, save us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are Jehovah, You alone.

²¹ Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus says Jehovah the God of Israel, Because you have prayed to Me against Sennacherib king of Assyria,

²² this is the word which Jehovah has spoken concerning him: The virgin, the daughter of Zion, has despised you and laughed you to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head behind you.

²³ Whom have you mocked and blasphemed? And against whom have you raised your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? Even against the Holy One of Israel.

²⁴ By your servants you have taunted Jehovah and have said, By my many chariots I have come up to the height of the mountains beside Lebanon; and I will cut down its tall cedars, and its choice fir trees; and I will go to the extremities of its height, the forest of its Carmel.

²⁵ I have dug and drunk water, and with the sole of my feet I have dried up all the rivers of the besieged places.

²⁶ Have you not heard from distant lands how I have done it? Even from ancient times I have formed it. Now I have brought it to pass, that your fortified cities should be caused to crash into heaps of ruins.

²⁷ And their inhabitants had little power; being dismayed and ashamed. They were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the housetops, and the standing grain before the field.

²⁸ But I know where you dwell, and your going out, and your coming in, and your rage against Me.

²⁹ Because your raging against Me, and your arrogance has come up into My ears, therefore I will put My hook in your nose, and My bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way from which you came.

³⁰ And this shall be a sign to you: You shall eat grain this year from what was sown by itself; and the second year that which springs from the same; and in the third year you shall sow, and reap, and plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them.

³¹ And the remnant that escaped of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward;

³² for out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and those who escape out of Mount Zion. The zeal of Jehovah of Hosts shall do this.

³³ Therefore thus says Jehovah to the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a mound against it.

³⁴ By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and shall not come into this city, says Jehovah.

³⁵ For I will defend this city to save it, for My own sake and for My servant David’s sake.

³⁶ Then the angel of Jehovah went out and struck a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of Assyria. And when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.

³⁷ So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and remained in Nineveh.

³⁸ And it came to pass as he was bowing down in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons struck him with the sword. And they escaped into the land of Ararat; and Esar-Haddon his son reigned in his place.