Isaiah 37:1-29 ▼

1 When King Hezekiah heard this, he tore his garments, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the LORD.

2 He sent Eliakim, the master of the palace, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to tell the prophet Isaiah, son of Amoz,

3 “Thus says Hezekiah: A day of distress and rebuke, a day of disgrace is this day! Children are due to come forth, but the strength to give birth is lacking.

4 Perhaps the LORD, your God, will hear the words of the commander, whom his lord, the king of Assyria, sent to taunt the living God, and will rebuke him for the words which the LORD, your God, has heard. So lift up a prayer for the remnant that is here.”

5 When the servants of King Hezekiah had come to Isaiah,

6 he said to them: “Tell this to your lord: Thus says the LORD: Do not be frightened by the words you have heard, by which the deputies of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.

7 I am putting in him such a spirit that when he hears a report he will return to his land. I will make him fall by the sword in his land.”

8 When the commander, on his return, heard that the king of Assyria had withdrawn from Lachish, he found him besieging Libnah.

9 The king of Assyria heard a report: “Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia, has come out to fight against you.” Again he sent messengers to Hezekiah to say:

10 “Thus shall you say to Hezekiah, king of Judah: Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you by saying, ‘Jerusalem will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.’

11 You, certainly, have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands: they put them under the ban! And are you to be delivered?

12 Did the gods of the nations whom my fathers destroyed deliver them—Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the Edenites in Telassar?

13 Where are the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, or a king of the cities Sepharvaim, Hena or Ivvah?”

14 Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it; then he went up to the house of the LORD, and spreading it out before the LORD,

15 Hezekiah prayed to the LORD:

16 “LORD of hosts, God of Israel, enthroned on the cherubim! You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. It is you who made the heavens and the earth.

17 Incline your ear, LORD, and listen! open your eyes, LORD, and see! Hear all the words Sennacherib has sent to taunt the living God.

18 Truly, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands.

19 They gave their gods to the fire —they were not gods at all, but the work of human hands— Wood and stone, they destroyed them.

20 Therefore, LORD, our God, save us from this man’s power, That all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone, LORD, are God.”

21 Then Isaiah, son of Amoz, sent this message to Hezekiah: “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, to whom you have prayed concerning Sennacherib, king of Assyria: I have listened!

22 This is the word the LORD has spoken concerning him: She despises you, laughs you to scorn, the virgin daughter Zion; Behind you she wags her head, daughter Jerusalem.

23 Whom have you insulted and blasphemed, at whom have you raised your voice And lifted up your eyes on high? At the Holy One of Israel!

24 Through the mouths of your messengers you have insulted the Lord when you said: ‘With my many chariots I went up to the tops of the peaks, to the recesses of Lebanon, To cut down its lofty cedars, its choice cypresses; I reached the farthest shelter, the forest ranges.

25 I myself dug wells and drank foreign water; Drying up all the rivers of Egypt beneath the soles of my feet.’

26 Have you not heard? A long time ago I prepared it, from days of old I planned it, Now I have brought it about: You are here to reduce fortified cities to heaps of ruins,

27 Their people powerless, dismayed and distraught, They are plants of the field, green growth, thatch on the rooftops, Grain scorched by the east wind.

28 I know when you stand or sit, when you come or go, and how you rage against me.

29 Because you rage against me and your smugness has reached my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth, And make you leave by the way you came.