Isaiah 37

Isaiah

37 ¹And it came to pass when King Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth and went into the House of the LORD. ²And he sent Eliakim, who was over the house; Shebna, the scribe; and the elders of the priests, who had covered themselves with sackcloth, to Isaiah, the prophet, son of Amoz. ³And they said to him,

Eliakim and Shebna

“Thus says Hezekiah, ‘This day is a day of distress, rebuke, and disgrace because children have come to the point of birth, but there is no strength to give birth. ⁴Perhaps the LORD your God hears the words of the chief officer, whom the king of Assyria his master has sent to taunt the living God, and the LORD your God will rebuke the words that He has heard. Therefore, may you lift up a prayer for the remnant who remain.’”

Isaiah

⁵And the ministers of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah. ⁶And Isaiah said to them,

Isaiah

“Thus, you will say to your master, Thus says the LORD,

The Lord

‘Do not be afraid of the words that you have heard, with which the youths of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me. ⁷Behold, I am putting a spirit in him so that he will hear a rumor and return to his land, and in his land, I will make him fall by the sword.’”

Isaiah

⁸The chief officer returned and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah, for he had heard that he had left Lachish. ⁹And he heard about Tirhakah, king of Cush saying, “He has gone forth to war with you.” And he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,

Chief officer

¹⁰“Thus you will say to Hezekiah, king of Judah, saying, ‘Do not let your God, who you trust, deceive you by saying, Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. ¹¹Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all of the countries, completely destroying them, and you will be delivered? ¹²Have the gods delivered the nations that my fathers destroyed—Gozen, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Telassar? ¹³Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the kings of the cities of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?’”

Isaiah

¹⁴And Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it. Then he went up to the House of the LORD and spread it before the LORD. ¹⁵And Hezekiah prayed to the LORD, saying,

Hezekiah

¹⁶“O  Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, enthroned on the cherubim, You alone are God of all the kingdoms of the earth; You have made the heavens and the earth. ¹⁷Extend Your ear, O  Lord, and hear. Open Your eyes, O  Lord, and see. And hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to taunt the living God. ¹⁸Truly, O  Lord, the kings of Assyria have destroyed all the nations and their lands ¹⁹and have placed their gods into the fire; they have destroyed them because they were not gods, but the work of the hands of a human—wood and stone. ²⁰And now, O  Lord our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone are the LORD.”

Isaiah

²¹Then Isaiah, the son of Amoz, sent to Hezekiah saying, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘of which you prayed to Me about Sennacherib, the king of Assyria,’ ²²This is the word that the LORD has spoken concerning him:

The Lord

“The virgin Daughter of Zion, she scorns you! She mocks you!
The Daughter of Jerusalem, she wags her head behind your back.

²³Whom have you taunted and blasphemed?
Against whom have you raised your voice
and lifted your eyes up high? Against the Holy One of Israel!

²⁴You have taunted the Lord by the hand of your servants. And you said,

Sennacherib

‘With my many chariots I have gone up to the heights of the mountains, to the far parts of Lebanon. And I cut down its tall cedars and its choicest cypresses. I came to its remotest height, its most fruitful forest. ²⁵I dug wells and drank the water of foreigners[1]. I dried up all the streams of Egypt with the sole of my foot.’

The Lord

²⁶Have you not heard long ago
that which I have done from days of old?

I fashioned it; I brought it to pass—
that you should make fortified cities desolate, into heaps, to be destroyed.

²⁷And their inhabitants are short of power;
they are dismayed and confounded.

and have become grass of the field,
and the green herb,

grass on the rooftops
and a field before an east wind[2].

²⁸I know your standing up[3], and your sitting,
and your going out, and your coming in, and your rage against Me.

²⁹Because of your raging against Me,
and your arrogance has come to My ears,

I will put My hook in your nose
and My bit in your lips,
and I will turn you back by the way that you came.”

³⁰And this is the sign for you:
Eat what grows of itself this year,
and in the second year what springs of the same,
but in the third year, sow and reap
and plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

³¹And the remnant of the house of Judah will again take root below
and bear fruit above.

³²For out of Jerusalem will go forth a remnant,
and they that escape [from Jerusalem will come upon][4] Mount Zion.

Isaiah

The zeal of the LORD of Hosts will do this.

³³Therefore, thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria,

The Lord

“He will not come into this city,
or shoot an arrow there,

or come before it with a shield,
or cast up a siege-ramp against it.

³⁴By the way that he came, he will return.
And he will not come into this city,”

Isaiah

declares the LORD.

The Lord

³⁵“I will defend this city, to save it for My own sake
and for the sake of David, My servant.”

Isaiah

³⁶And the angel of the LORD went forth and slew a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp. And when they [who were left] arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. ³⁷And Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, traveled and returned and dwelt at Nineveh. ³⁸And as he was worshipping in the house [temple] of Nisroch, his god, his sons, Adrammelech and Sharezer, slew him with the sword. And they escaped into the land of Armenia. Then Esarhaddon, his son, reigned in his stead.