19 When king Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into Yahweh’s house. ² He sent Eliakim, who was over the household, Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz. ³ They said to him, “Hezekiah says, ‘Today is a day of trouble, of rebuke, and of rejection; for the children have come to the point of birth, and there is no strength to deliver them. ⁴ It may be Yahweh your God will hear all the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master has sent to defy the living God, and will rebuke the words which Yahweh your God has heard. Therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.’”

⁵ So the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah. ⁶ Isaiah said to them, “Tell your master this: ‘Yahweh says, “Don’t be afraid of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. ⁷ Behold, I will put a spirit in him, and he will hear news, and will return to his own land. I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.”’”

⁸ So Rabshakeh returned and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah; for he had heard that he had departed from Lachish. ⁹ When he heard it said of Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, “Behold, he has come out to fight against you, he sent messengers again to Hezekiah, saying, ¹⁰ ‘Tell Hezekiah king of Judah this: “Don’t let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. ¹¹ Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly. Will you be delivered? ¹² Have the gods of the nations delivered them, which my fathers have destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the children of Eden who were in Telassar? ¹³ Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivvah?”’”

¹⁴ Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it. Then Hezekiah went up to Yahweh’s house, and spread it before Yahweh. ¹⁵ Hezekiah prayed before Yahweh, and said, “Yahweh, the God of Israel, who are enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, even you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. ¹⁶ Incline your ear, Yahweh, and hear. Open your eyes, Yahweh, and see. Hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to defy the living God. ¹⁷ Truly, Yahweh, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands, ¹⁸ and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. Therefore they have destroyed them. ¹⁹ Now therefore, Yahweh our God, save us, I beg you, out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, Yahweh, are God alone.”

²⁰ Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Yahweh, the God of Israel, says ‘You have prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria, and I have heard you. ²¹ This is the word that Yahweh has spoken concerning him: ‘The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and ridiculed you. The daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head at you. ²² Whom have you defied and blasphemed? Against whom have you exalted your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel! ²³ By your messengers, you have defied the Lord, and 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 its tall cedars and its choice cypress trees; and I will enter into his farthest lodging place, the forest of his fruitful field. ²⁴ I have dug and drunk strange waters, and I will dry up all the rivers of Egypt with the sole of my feet.” ²⁵ Haven’t you heard how I have done it long ago, and formed it of ancient times? Now I have brought it to pass, that it should be yours to lay waste fortified cities into ruinous heaps. ²⁶ Therefore their inhabitants had little power. They were dismayed and confounded. They were like the grass of the field, and like the green herb, like the grass on the housetops, and like grain blasted before it has grown up. ²⁷ But I know your sitting down, your going out, your coming in, and your raging against me. ²⁸ Because of your raging against me, and because your arrogance has come up into my ears, therefore 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.’

²⁹ “This will be the sign to you: This year, you will eat that which grows of itself, and in the second year that which springs from that; and in the third year sow, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat its fruit. ³⁰ The remnant that has escaped of the house of Judah will again take root downward, and bear fruit upward. ³¹ For out of Jerusalem a remnant will go out, and out of Mount Zion those who shall escape. Yahweh’s zeal will perform this.

³² “Therefore Yahweh says concerning the king of Assyria, ‘He will not come to this city, nor shoot an arrow there. He will not come before it with shield, nor cast up a mound against it. ³³ He will return the same way that he came, and he will not come to this city,’ says Yahweh. ³⁴ ‘For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake, and for my servant David’s sake.’”

³⁵ That night, Yahweh’s angel went out, and struck one hundred eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians. When men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. ³⁶ So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and lived at Nineveh. ³⁷ As he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. Esar Haddon his son reigned in his place.

1 Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, to the assembly of the Thessalonians in God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ: ² Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

³ We are bound to always give thanks to God for you, brothers,^[a] even as it is appropriate, because your faith grows exceedingly, and the love of each and every one of you toward one another abounds, ⁴ so that we ourselves boast about you in the assemblies of God for your perseverance and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions which you endure. ⁵ This is an obvious sign of the righteous judgment of God, to the end that you may be counted worthy of God’s Kingdom, for which you also suffer. ⁶ Since it is a righteous thing with God to repay affliction to those who afflict you, ⁷ and to give relief to you who are afflicted with us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, ⁸ punishing those who don’t know God, and to those who don’t obey the Good News of our Lord Jesus, ⁹ who will pay the penalty: eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his might, ¹⁰ when he comes in that day to be glorified in his saints and to be admired among all those who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.

¹¹ To this end we also pray always for you, that our God may count you worthy of your calling, and fulfill every desire of goodness and work of faith with power, ¹² that the name of our Lord Jesus^[b] may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Now, brothers, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him, we ask you ² not to be quickly shaken in your mind, and not be troubled, either by spirit, or by word, or by letter as if from us, saying that the day of Christ has already come. ³ Let no one deceive you in any way. For it will not be, unless the rebellion^[c] comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of destruction, ⁴ he who opposes and exalts himself against all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, setting himself up as God. ⁵ Don’t you remember that, when I was still with you, I told you these things? ⁶ Now you know what is restraining him, to the end that he may be revealed in his own season. ⁷ For the mystery of lawlessness already works. Only there is one who restrains now, until he is taken out of the way. ⁸ Then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will kill with the breath of his mouth, and destroy by the manifestation of his coming; ⁹ even he whose coming is according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, ¹⁰ and with all deception of wickedness for those who are being lost, because they didn’t receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. ¹¹ Because of this, God sends them a working of error, that they should believe a lie; ¹² that they all might be judged who didn’t believe the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

¹³ But we are bound to always give thanks to God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief in the truth, ¹⁴ to which he called you through our Good News, for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. ¹⁵ So then, brothers, stand firm and hold the traditions which you were taught by us, whether by word or by letter.

¹⁶ Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, ¹⁷ comfort your hearts and establish you in every good work and word.