1And it came to pass, when king Hezekiah heard it, that he tore his garments and covered himself with sackcloth and came into the house of YHWH.
2And he sent Eliakim who was over the house, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet son of Amoz.
3And they said to him, "Thus says Hezekiah: This day is a day of distress and of rebuke and of contempt; for the sons have come as far as the birth, and there is no strength to bring forth.
4Perhaps YHWH your God will hear all the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master sent to reproach the living (chai) God, and will rebuke the words which YHWH your God has heard. So lift up a prayer for the remnant that is found."
5And the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah.
6And Isaiah said to them, "Thus you shall say to your master: Thus says YHWH: Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the young men of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.
7Behold, I am putting a spirit (ruach) in him, and he will hear a report and return to his own land, and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land."
8And Rabshakeh returned and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah, for he had heard that he had departed from Lachish.
9And he heard concerning Tirhakah king of Cush, saying, "Behold, he has come out to fight against you." And he returned and 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 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 the lands, devoting them to destruction; and shall you be delivered?
12Did the gods of the nations deliver them whom my fathers destroyed—Gozan and Haran and Rezeph and the sons of Eden who were in Telassar?
13Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?"
14And Hezekiah took the letters from the hand of the messengers and read them; and Hezekiah went up to the house of YHWH and spread it before YHWH.
15And Hezekiah prayed before YHWH and said, "O YHWH, God of Israel, who sits upon the cherubim, you are he, the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you made the heavens and the earth.
16Incline, O YHWH, your ear and hear; open, O YHWH, your eyes and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he sent to reproach the living (chai) God.
17Truly, O YHWH, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands,
18and have put their gods into the fire, for they were not gods but the work of the hands of man (adam), wood and stone; therefore they destroyed them.
19And now, O YHWH our God, save us (yasha), please, from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O YHWH, are God, you alone.
20And Isaiah son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, "Thus says YHWH, the God of Israel: That which you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria, I have heard.
21This is the word that YHWH has spoken concerning him: She has despised you, she has mocked you, the virgin daughter of Zion; behind you she has shaken her head, the daughter of Jerusalem.
22Whom have you reproached and blasphemed? And against whom have you raised a voice and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel!
23By the hand of your messengers you have reproached my Lord (Adonai), and you have said, 'With the multitude of my chariots I have come up to the height of the mountains, to the innermost parts of Lebanon; and I will cut down the tallness of its cedars, the choice of its cypresses; and I will enter the lodging of its farthest height, the forest of its fruitful field.'
24I have dug and drunk strange waters, and with the sole of my feet I will dry up all the streams of Egypt.
25Have you not heard? Long ago I did it; from days of antiquity I formed it; now I have brought it about, that you should turn fortified cities into ruinous heaps.
26And their inhabitants, short of hand, were dismayed and ashamed; they were the herb of the field and the green of the tender grass, the grass of the housetops, and grain blasted before it has risen up.
27But your sitting down and your going out and your coming in I know, and your raging against me.
28Because of your raging against me, and because your arrogance has come up into my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way by which you came.
29And this shall be the sign (ot) to you: this year you shall eat what grows of itself, and in the second year that which springs from the same; and in the third year sow and reap, and plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
30And the remnant of the house of Judah that remains shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward.
31For from Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and those who escape from Mount Zion; the zeal of YHWH of hosts (tzevaot) shall do this.
32Therefore thus says YHWH concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city, nor shoot there an arrow, nor come before it with a shield, nor cast up a siege mound against it.
33By the way that he came, by it he shall return, and into this city he shall not come, declares YHWH.
34And I will defend this city to save it (yasha), for my own sake and for the sake of David my servant.
35And it came to pass that night, that the angel of YHWH went out and struck in the camp of Assyria a hundred eighty-five thousand; and they rose early in the morning, and behold, they were all dead corpses.
36And Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went and returned, and dwelt in Nineveh.
37And 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 to the land of Ararat; and Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.