2 Kings 18:17-19:37

Living Bible

¹⁷ Nevertheless the king of Assyria sent his field marshal, his chief treasurer, and his chief of staff from Lachish with a great army; and they camped along the highway beside the field where cloth was bleached, near the conduit of the upper pool. ¹⁸ They demanded that King Hezekiah come out to speak to them, but instead he sent a truce delegation of the following men: Eliakim, his business manager; Shebnah, his secretary; and Joah, his royal historian.

¹⁹ Then the Assyrian general sent this message to King Hezekiah: “The great king of Assyria says, ‘No one can save you from my power! ^20-21 You need more than mere promises of help before rebelling against me. But which of your allies will give you more than words? Egypt? If you lean on Egypt, you will find her to be a stick that breaks beneath your weight and pierces your hand. The Egyptian Pharaoh is totally unreliable! ²² And if you say, “We’re trusting the Lord to rescue us”—just remember that he is the very one whose hilltop altars you’ve destroyed. For you require everyone to worship at the altar in Jerusalem!’ ²³ I’ll tell you what: Make a bet with my master, the king of Assyria! If you have two thousand men left who can ride horses, we’ll furnish the horses! ²⁴ And with an army as small as yours,^[a] you are no threat to even the least lieutenant in charge of the smallest contingent in my master’s army. Even if Egypt supplies you with horses and chariots, it will do no good. ²⁵ And do you think we have come here on our own? No! The Lord sent us and told us, ‘Go and destroy this nation!’”

²⁶ Then Eliakim, Shebnah, and Joah said to them, “Please speak in Aramaic, for we understand it. Don’t use Hebrew, for the people standing on the walls will hear you.”

²⁷ But the Assyrian general replied, “Has my master sent me to speak only to you and to your master? Hasn’t he sent me to the people on the walls too? For they are doomed with you to eat their own excrement and drink their own urine!”

²⁸ Then the Assyrian ambassador shouted in Hebrew to the people on the wall, “Listen to the great king of Assyria! ²⁹ ‘Don’t let King Hezekiah fool you. He will never be able to save you from my power. ³⁰ Don’t let him fool you into trusting in the Lord to rescue you. ^31-32 Don’t listen to King Hezekiah. Surrender! You can live in peace here in your own land until I take you to another land just like this one—with plentiful crops, grain, grapes, olive trees, and honey. All of this instead of death! Don’t listen to King Hezekiah when he tries to persuade you that the Lord will deliver you. ³³ Have any of the gods of the other nations ever delivered their people from the king of Assyria? ³⁴ What happened to the gods of Hamath, Arpad, Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Did they rescue Samaria? ³⁵ What god has ever been able to save any nation from my power? So what makes you think the Lord can save Jerusalem?’”

³⁶ But the people on the wall remained silent, for the king had instructed them to say nothing. ³⁷ Then Eliakim (son of Hilkiah) the business manager, and Shebnah the king’s secretary, and Joah (son of Asaph) the historian went to King Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him what the Assyrian general had said.

19 When King Hezekiah heard their report, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and went into the Temple to pray. ² Then he told Eliakim, Shebnah, and some of the older priests to clothe themselves in sackcloth and to go to Isaiah (son of Amoz), the prophet, with this message:

³ “King Hezekiah says, ‘This is a day of trouble, insult, and dishonor. It is as when a child is ready to be born, but the mother has no strength to deliver it. ⁴ Yet perhaps the Lord your God has heard the Assyrian general defying the living God and will rebuke him. Oh, pray for the few of us who are left.’”

^5-6 Isaiah replied, “The Lord says, ‘Tell your master not to be troubled by the sneers these Assyrians have made against me.’ ⁷ For the king of Assyria will receive bad news from home and will decide to return; and the Lord will see to it that he is killed when he arrives there.”

⁸ Then the Assyrian general returned to his king at Libnah (for he received word that he had left Lachish). ⁹ Soon afterwards news reached the king that King Tirhakah of Ethiopia was coming to attack him. Before leaving to meet the attack, he sent back this message to King Hezekiah:

¹⁰ “Don’t be fooled by that god you trust in. Don’t believe it when he says that I won’t conquer Jerusalem. ¹¹ You know perfectly well what the kings of Assyria have done wherever they have gone; they have completely destroyed everything. Why would you be any different? ¹² Have the gods of the other nations delivered them—such nations as Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and Eden in the land of Telassar? The former kings of Assyria destroyed them all! ¹³ What happened to the king of Hamoth and the king of Arpad? What happened to the kings of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?”

¹⁴ Hezekiah took the letter from the messengers, read it, and went over to the Temple and spread it out before the Lord. ¹⁵ Then he prayed this prayer:

“O Lord God of Israel, sitting on your throne high above the angels,^[b] you alone are the God of all the kingdoms of the earth. You created the heavens and the earth. ¹⁶ Bend low, O Lord, and listen. Open your eyes, O Lord, and see. Listen to this man’s defiance of the living God. ¹⁷ Lord, it is true that the kings of Assyria have destroyed all those nations ¹⁸ and have burned their idol-gods. But they weren’t gods at all; they were destroyed because they were only things that men had made of wood and stone. ¹⁹ O Lord our God, we plead with you to save us from his power; then all the kingdoms of the earth will know that you alone are God.”

²⁰ Then Isaiah sent this message to Hezekiah: “The Lord God of Israel says, ‘I have heard you! ²¹ And this is my reply to King Sennacherib: The virgin daughter of Zion isn’t afraid of you! The daughter of Jerusalem scorns and mocks at you. ²² Whom have you defied and blasphemed? And toward whom have you felt so cocky? It is the Holy One of Israel!

²³ “‘You have boasted, “My chariots have conquered the highest mountains, yes, the peaks of Lebanon. I have cut down the tallest cedars and choicest cypress trees and have conquered the farthest borders. ²⁴ I have been refreshed at many conquered wells, and I destroyed the strength of Egypt just by walking by!”

²⁵ “‘Why haven’t you realized long before this that it is I, the Lord, who lets you do these things? I decreed your conquest of all those fortified cities! ²⁶ So of course the nations you conquered had no power against you! They were like grass shriveling beneath the hot sun, and like grain blighted before it is half grown. ²⁷ I know everything about you. I know all your plans and where you are going next; and I also know the evil things you have said about me. ²⁸ And because of your arrogance against me, I am going to put a hook in your nose and a bridle in your mouth and turn you back on the road by which you came. ²⁹ And this is the proof that I will do as I have promised: This year my people will eat the volunteer wheat and use it as seed for next year’s crop; and in the third year they will have a bountiful harvest.

³⁰ “‘O my people Judah, those of you who have escaped the ravages of the siege shall become a great nation again; you shall be rooted deeply in the soil and bear fruit for God. ³¹ A remnant of my people shall become strong in Jerusalem. The Lord is eager to cause this to happen.

³² “‘And my command concerning the king of Assyria is that he shall not enter this city. He shall not stand before it with a shield, nor build a ramp against its wall, nor even shoot an arrow into it. ³³ He shall return by the road he came, ³⁴ for I will defend and save this city for the sake of my own name and for the sake of my servant David.’”

³⁵ That very night the Angel of the Lord killed 185,000 Assyrian troops, and dead bodies were seen all across the landscape in the morning.

³⁶ Then King Sennacherib returned to Nineveh; ³⁷ and as he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer killed him. They escaped into eastern Turkey—the land of Ararat—and his son Esarhaddon became the new king.