Judgment on the Nations

The Return of the Redeemed to Zion

Sennacherib Threatens Jerusalem

36 In the fourteenth year of King Hezeki′ah, Sennach′erib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them. ² And the king of Assyria sent the Rab′shakeh from Lachish to King Hezeki′ah at Jerusalem, with a great army. And he stood by the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Fuller’s Field. ³ And there came out to him Eli′akim the son of Hilki′ah, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and Jo′ah the son of Asaph, the recorder.

⁴ And the Rab′shakeh said to them, “Say to Hezeki′ah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: On what do you rest this confidence of yours? ⁵ Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? On whom do you now rely, that you have rebelled against me? ⁶ Behold, you are relying on Egypt, that broken reed of a staff, which will pierce the hand of any man who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who rely on him. ⁷ But if you say to me, “We rely on the Lord our God,” is it not he whose high places and altars Hezeki′ah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem,“You shall worship before this altar”? ⁸ Come now, make a wager with my master the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders upon them. ⁹ How then can you repulse a single captain among the least of my master’s servants, when you rely on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? ¹⁰ Moreover, is it without the Lord that I have come up against this land to destroy it? The Lord said to me, Go up against this land, and destroy it.’”

¹¹ Then Eli′akim, Shebna, and Jo′ah said to the Rab′shakeh, “Pray, speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it; do not speak to us in the language of Judah within the hearing of the people who are on the wall.” ¹² But the Rab′shakeh said, “Has my master sent me to speak these words to your master and to you, and not to the men sitting on the wall, who are doomed with you to eat their own dung and drink their own urine?”

¹³ Then the Rab′shakeh stood and called out in a loud voice in the language of Judah: “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria! ¹⁴ Thus says the king: ‘Do not let Hezeki′ah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you. ¹⁵ Do not let Hezeki′ah make you rely on the Lord by saying, “The Lord will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” ¹⁶ Do not listen to Hezeki′ah; for thus says the king of Assyria: Make your peace with me and come out to me; then every one of you will eat of his own vine, and every one of his own fig tree, and every one of you will drink the water of his own cistern; ¹⁷ until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards. ¹⁸ Beware lest Hezeki′ah mislead you by saying, “The Lord will deliver us.” Has any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? ¹⁹ Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharva′im? Have they delivered Samar′ia out of my hand? ²⁰ Who among all the gods of these countries have delivered their countries out of my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’”

²¹ But they were silent and answered him not a word, for the king’s command was, “Do not answer him.” ²² Then Eli′akim the son of Hilki′ah, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and Jo′ah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezeki′ah with their clothes rent, and told him the words of the Rab′shakeh.

False Prophets and Their Punishment

2 But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. ² And many will follow their licentiousness, and because of them the way of truth will be reviled. ³ And in their greed they will exploit you with false words; from of old their condemnation has not been idle, and their destruction has not been asleep.^[a]

⁴ For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell^[b] and committed them to pits of nether gloom to be kept until the judgment; ⁵ if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven other persons, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; ⁶ if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomor′rah to ashes he condemned them to extinction and made them an example to those who were to be ungodly; ⁷ and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the licentiousness of the wicked ⁸ (for by what that righteous man saw and heard as he lived among them, he was vexed in his righteous soul day after day with their lawless deeds), ⁹ then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, ¹⁰ and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.

Bold and wilful, they are not afraid to revile the glorious ones, ¹¹ whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not pronounce a reviling judgment upon them before the Lord. ¹² But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and killed, reviling in matters of which they are ignorant, will be destroyed in the same destruction with them, ¹³ suffering wrong for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their dissipation,^[c] carousing with you. ¹⁴ They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! ¹⁵ Forsaking the right way they have gone astray; they have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Be′or, who loved gain from wrongdoing, ¹⁶ but was rebuked for his own transgression; a dumb ass spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.

¹⁷ These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm; for them the nether gloom of darkness has been reserved. ¹⁸ For, uttering loud boasts of folly, they entice with licentious passions of the flesh men who have barely escaped from those who live in error. ¹⁹ They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption; for whatever overcomes a man, to that he is enslaved. ²⁰ For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overpowered, the last state has become worse for them than the first. ²¹ For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. ²² It has happened to them according to the true proverb, The dog turns back to his own vomit, and the sow is washed only to wallow in the mire.