2 Kings 19:21-28

English Standard Version

“She despises you, she scorns you—
    ^(A)the virgin daughter of Zion;
she ^(B)wags her head behind you—
    the daughter of Jerusalem.

²² “Whom have you ^(C)mocked and ^(D)reviled?
    Against whom have you raised your voice
and lifted your eyes to the heights?
    Against ^(E)the Holy One of Israel!
^23 (F)By your messengers you have mocked the Lord,
    and you have said, ^(G)‘With my many chariots
I have gone up the heights of the mountains,
    to the far recesses of ^(H)Lebanon;
I felled its tallest cedars,
    its choicest cypresses;
I entered its farthest lodging place,
    its most ^(I)fruitful forest.
²⁴ I dug wells
    and drank foreign waters,
and I dried up with the sole of my foot
    all the streams ^(J)of Egypt.’

²⁵ “Have you not heard
    that ^(K)I determined it long ago?
I planned from days of old
    what ^(L)now I bring to pass,
that you should turn fortified cities
    into heaps of ruins,
²⁶ while their inhabitants, shorn of strength,
    are dismayed and confounded,
and have become ^(M)like plants of the field
    and like tender grass,
like grass on the housetops,
    blighted before it is grown.

²⁷ “But I know your sitting down
    ^(N)and your going out and coming in,
    and your raging against me.
²⁸ Because you have raged against me
    and your complacency has come into my ears,
I will ^(O)put my hook in your nose
    and my bit in your mouth,
and ^(P)I will turn you back on the way
    by which you came.