19
Hezekiah consulted the prophet Isaiah
1 When King Hezekiah heard what they reported, he tore his clothes and put on clothes made of rough cloth because he was very distressed. Then he went to the temple to ask God what to do. 2 He summoned Eliakim and Shebna and the ◄older/most important► priests, who were also wearing clothes made of rough sackcloth, and told them to talk to me. 3 He said to them, “Tell this to Isaiah: ‘King Hezekiah says that we are having great distress/trouble now. Other nations are causing us to be insulted and disgraced. We are like [MET] a woman who is about to give birth to a child, but she does not have the strength that she needs to do it. 4 Perhaps Yahweh your God has heard everything that the official from Assyria said. Perhaps he knows that his boss/master, the king of Assyria, sent him to insult the all-powerful God, and that Yahweh will rebuke/punish him for what he said.’ And he requests that you pray for the few of us who are still alive here in Jerusalem.”
5 When the messengers from Hezekiah came to Isaiah, 6 Isaiah said to them, “Go back to your boss/master and tell him, ‘This is what Yahweh says: Those messengers from the king of Assyria have said evil things about me. But you should not be disturbed because of what they said. 7 Listen to this: I will cause Sennacherib to hear a rumor that will worry him, that a foreign army is about to attack his country. So he will return to his own country, and there I will cause him to be assassinated by men using swords.’ ”
8 The official from Assyria found out that the King of Assyria and his army had left Lachish city, and that they were attacking Libnah, which is a nearby city. So the official went there to report to him what had happened in Jerusalem.
9 Soon after that, King Sennacherib received a report that King Tirhakah of Ethiopia was leading his army, and was coming to attack them. So before King Sennacherib left Libnah to fight against the army from Ethiopia, he sent other messengers to King Hezekiah with a letter. 10 In the letter he wrote this to Hezekiah: “Do not allow your god on whom you are relying to deceive you by promising that the city of Jerusalem will not be captured by my army [MTY]. 11 You have certainly heard what the armies of the kings of Assyria have done to all the other countries. Our armies have completely destroyed them. So, ◄do you think that you will escape?/do not think that your god will save you!► [RHQ] 12 Did the gods of the nations that were about to be destroyed by the armies of the previous kings of Assyria rescue them? Did those gods rescue the people in the Gozan region and in Haran and Rezeph cities in northern Syria and the people of Eden who had been ◄deported/forced to go► to Tel-Assar city? None of the gods of those cities were able to rescue them. 13 What happened to the kings of Hamath and Arpad and Sepharvaim and Ivvah cities [RHQ]? Most of them are dead, and the other people were deported!”
Hezekiah prayed
14 Hezekiah took the letter that the messengers gave him, and he read it. Then he went up to the temple and spread out the letter in front of Yahweh. 15 Then Hezekiah prayed, “Yahweh, the God whom to whom we Israelis belong, you are seated on your throne above the statues of creatures with wings, above the Sacred Chest. Only you are truly God. You rule all the kingdoms on this earth. You are the one who created everything on the earth and in the sky. 16 So, Yahweh, please listen to what I am saying, and look at what is happening. And listen to what King Sennacherib has said to insult you, the all-powerful God.
17 “Yahweh, it is true that the armies of the kings of Assyria have completely destroyed many nations, and ruined their land. 18 And they have thrown the idols of those nations into fires and burned them. But that was not difficult to do, because they were not gods. They were only statues made of wood and stone, idols that were shaped by humans, and that is why they were destroyed easily. 19 So now, Yahweh our God, please rescue us from the power [MTY] of the king of Assyria, in order that the people in all the kingdoms of the world will know that you, Yahweh, are the only one who is truly God.”
Isaiah predicted that the Assyrians would not conquer Jerusalem
20 Then Isaiah sent this message to Hezekiah: “This is what Yahweh, the God to whom we Israelis belong, says: 'I have heard what you prayed to me about Sennacherib, the king of Assyria. 21 This is what I say to him:
“The people of Jerusalem [MTY] despise you and make fun of you.
They wag/shake their heads to mock you while you flee from here.
22 Who do you think that you are despising and ridiculing?
Who do you think you were shouting at?
Who do you think you were looking at very proudly/arrogantly?
It was I, the holy God whom the Israelis worship.
23 The messengers that you sent made fun of me.
You said, 'With my many chariots I have gone to the highest mountains,
even to the highest mountains in Lebanon.
We have cut down its tallest cedar trees
and its nicest pine/cyprus trees.
We have been to the most distant/remote peaks
and to its dense forests.
24 We have dug wells in other countries and drank water from them.
And by marching through [MTY] the streams of Egypt,
we dried them all up [HYP]!” ’
25 ‘But I reply, “Have you never heard that long ago I determined that those things would happen?
I planned it long ago,
and now I have been causing it to happen.
I planned that your army would have the power to capture many cities that were surrounded by high walls,
and cause them to become piles of rubble.
26 The people who lived in those cities have no power,
and as a result they became dismayed and discouraged.
They are as frail as plants and grass in the fields,
as frail as grass that grows on the roofs of houses
and is scorched by the hot east wind.
27 “But I know everything about you.
I know when you are in your house and when you go outside;
I also know that you are ◄raging/speaking very angrily► against me.
28 So, because you have raged against me,
and because I have heard [MTY] you speak very proudly/arrogantly,
it will be as though I will put a hook in your nose
and an iron ◄bit/piece of metal► in your mouth in order that I can lead you where I want you to go,
and I will force you to return to your own country
on the same road on which you came here, without conquering Jerusalem.” '
29 Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “This is what will happen to prove that I am telling the truth:
This year and next year you and your people will be able to harvest only ◄wild grain/grain that grows without having been planted►.
But the following year, you Israelis will be able to plant grain and harvest it, and to plant vineyards and eat the grapes that you harvest.
30 The people [MTY] in Judah who remain alive will prosper and have many children; they will be like plants whose roots go deep down into the ground and which produce much [MET].
31 There will be many people in Jerusalem [DOU] who will survive, because Yahweh, the commander of the armies of angels in heaven, wants [PRS] it to happen.
32 So this is what Yahweh, says about the king of Assyria:
‘His armies will not enter this city;
they will not even shoot any arrows into it!
His soldiers will not march outside the city gates carrying shields,
and they will not even build high mounds of dirt against the city walls
to enable them to attack the city.
33 Their king will return to his own country
on the same road on which he came here.
He will not enter this city!
That will happen because I, Yahweh have said it!
34 I will defend this city and prevent it from being destroyed.
I will do this for the sake of my own reputation and because of what I promised to King David, who served me well.' ”
35 That night, an angel from Yahweh went out to where the army of Assyria had put up their tents, and killed 185,000 of their soldiers! When the rest of their soldiers woke up the next morning, they saw that there were corpses everywhere! 36 Then King Sennacherib left and went home to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria.
37 One day, when he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, two of his sons, Adrammelech and Sharezer, killed him with their swords. Then they escaped and went to the Ararat region, northwest of Nineveh. And another of Sennacherib's sons, Esarhaddon, became the king of Assyria.