1And when king Hezekiah had heard these things, he rent his clothes, and was covered with a sackcloth; and he entered into the house of the Lord.

2And he sent Eliakim, [the] sovereign of the house, and Shebna, the scribe, and [the] eld [or old] men of the priests, covered with sackcloths, to Isaiah, the prophet, the son of Amoz.

3The which said to him, Hezekiah saith these things, This day is a day of tribulation, and of blaming, and of blasphemy; sons came unto the birth, and the mother travailing hath not strength thereto.

4If peradventure thy Lord God hear all the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyrians, his lord hath sent, that he should despise the Lord living, and reprove by words, which thy Lord God heard; and make thou prayer for these remnants of the people, that be found.

5Therefore the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah;

6and Isaiah said to them, Say ye these things to your lord, The Lord saith these things, Do not thou dread of the face, or showing, of the words, that thou heardest, by which the children of the king of Assyrians blasphemed me.

7Lo! I shall send to him a spirit, and he shall hear a messenger, and he shall turn again into his land; and I shall cast him down by sword in his own land.

8Therefore Rabshakeh turned again, and found the king of Assyrians fighting against Libnah; for he had heard, that the king had gone away from Lachish.

9And when he had heard of Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia, men saying, Lo! he went out, that he fight against thee; that he should go against that king, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, and said,

10Say ye these things to Hezekiah, king of Judah, Thy Lord God, in whom thou hast trust, deceive not thee, neither say thou, Jerusalem shall not be betaken into the hands of the king of Assyrians;

11for thou thyself hast heard what things the kings of Assyrians have done in all lands, how they have wasted them; whether therefore thou alone mayest be delivered?

12Whether the gods of heathen men delivered all men which my fathers destroyed, that is, Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the sons of Eden, that were in Thelasar?

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

14Therefore when Hezekiah had taken the letters from the hand of the messengers, and had read them, he went up into the house of the Lord, and spreaded abroad those letters before the Lord;

15and prayed in his sight, and said, Lord God of Israel, that sittest upon cherubim, thou art God alone of all kings of [the] earth; thou madest heaven and earth.

16Bow [down] thine ear, and hear; open thine eyes, Lord, and see; and hear all the words of Sennacherib, the which hath sent to us, that he would despise the living God.

17Truly, Lord, the kings of Assyrians have destroyed heathen men, and the lands of all men,

18and they have sent the gods of them into fire; for they were not gods, but [the] works of men’s hands, of wood and of stone; and they destroyed them.

19Now therefore, our Lord God, make us safe from the hand of them, that all the realms of [the] earth know that thou art the Lord God alone.

20Forsooth Isaiah, the son of Amoz, sent to Hezekiah, and said, The Lord God of Israel saith these things, I have heard those things, which thou prayedest me on Sennacherib, king of Assyrians.

21This is the word, that the Lord hath spoken of him, Thou virgin the daughter of Zion, the king of Assyria hath despised thee, and scorned thee; thou daughter of Jerusalem, he moved his head after thy back.

22O! Sennacherib, whom hast thou despised, and whom hast thou blasphemed? Against whom hast thou raised thy voice, and hast raised thine eyes on high? Against the Holy of Israel.

23By the hand of thy servants thou hast despised the Lord, and saidest, In the multitude of my chariots I went up into the high things of hills, in the highness of Lebanon, and [I] cutted down the high cedars thereof, and the chosen box trees thereof; and I entered unto the terms, or uttermost coasts, thereof, and I cutted down the forest of Carmel thereof;

24and I drank alien waters, and I made dry with the steps of my feet all [the] waters enclosed.

25Whether thou heardest not, what I made at the beginning? From [the] eld [or old] days I made it, and now I have brought it forth; and strengthened cities of fighters shall be into falling of hills.

26And they that sit meek in hand in those cities, trembled together, and be shamed; they be made as the hay of the field, and as green herb of roofs, which dried, or withered, before that it came to ripeness.

27And I knew thy dwelling [place], and thy going out, and thine entering or thy going in, and thy way, and thy strong vengeance against me.

28Thou were wroth against me, and thy pride went up into mine ears; therefore I shall put a ring in thy nostrils, and a barnacle in thy lips, and I shall lead thee again into the way by which thou camest.

29Forsooth Hezekiah, this shall be a sign to thee; eat thou in this year that, that thou findest; forsooth in the second year, those things that grow by their own will; soothly in the third year, sow ye, and reap ye, and plant ye vineries [or vines], and eat the fruits of those [or them].

30And whatever thing shall be residue, or left over, of the house of Judah, it shall send root downward, and shall make fruit upward.

31For the relics, or folk left, shall go out of Jerusalem, and those who shall be saved, shall go out of the hill of Zion; the fervent love of the Lord of hosts shall do this.

32Wherefore the Lord saith these things of the king of Assyrians, He shall not enter into this city Jerusalem, neither he shall send an arrow into it, neither shield of him shall occupy it, neither stronghold, either besieging, shall encompass it.

33He shall turn again by the way by which he came, and he shall not enter into this city, saith the Lord;

34and I shall defend this city, and I shall save it for myself, and for David, my servant.

35Therefore it was done, in that night the angel of the Lord came, and smote in the castles [or tents] of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand. And when Sennacherib had risen early, he saw all the bodies of [the] dead men;

36and he departed, and went away. And Sennacherib, king of Assyrians, turned again, and dwelled in Nineveh.

37And when he worshipped in the temple Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, killed him with sword; and they fled into the land of Armenia; and Esarhaddon, his son, reigned for him.