Assyria Refuses to Help Judah

¹⁶ At that time King Ahaz sent to the king^[a] of Assyria for help.^(A)

¹⁷ The Lord will bring on you and on your people and on your ancestral house such days as have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah—the king of Assyria.”^(A)

Isaiah Reassures King Ahaz

7 In the days of Ahaz son of Jotham son of Uzziah, king of Judah, King Rezin of Aram and King Pekah son of Remaliah of Israel went up to attack Jerusalem but could not conquer it.^{(A) 2} When the house of David heard that Aram had allied itself with Ephraim, the heart of Ahaz^[a] and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.^(B)

³ Then the Lord said to Isaiah, “Go out to meet Ahaz, you and your son Shear-jashub,^[b] at the end of the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the fuller’s field,^{(C) 4} and say to him: Take heed, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint because of these two smoldering stumps of firebrands, because of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and the son of Remaliah.^{(D) 5} Because Aram—with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah—has plotted evil against you, saying, ⁶ ‘Let us go up against Judah and terrify it^[c] and conquer it for ourselves and make the son of Tabeel king in it’; ⁷ therefore thus says the Lord God:

(Within sixty-five years Ephraim will be shattered, no longer a people.)^(F)

⁵ Then King Rezin of Aram and King Pekah son of Remaliah of Israel came up to wage war on Jerusalem; they besieged Ahaz but could not conquer him.^{(A) 6} At that time King Rezin of Aram recovered Elath for Edom^[a] and drove the Judeans from Elath, and the Edomites came to Elath, where they live to this day.^{(B) 7} Ahaz sent messengers to King Tiglath-pileser of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come up and rescue me from the hand of the king of Aram and from the hand of the king of Israel, who are attacking me.”^(C)