Hezekiah’s Prayer

¹⁴ Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it. Then he went up to the house (temple) of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord.^{(A) 15} Hezekiah prayed before the Lord and said, “O Lord, the God of Israel, who is enthroned above the cherubim [of the ^[a]ark in the temple], You are the God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made the heavens and the earth. ¹⁶ O Lord, bend down Your ear and hear; Lord, open Your eyes and see; hear the [taunting] words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to taunt and defy the living God. ¹⁷ It is true, Lord, that the Assyrian kings have devastated the nations and their lands ¹⁸ and have thrown their gods into the fire, for they were not [real] gods but [only] the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. So they [could destroy them and] have destroyed them. ¹⁹ Now, O Lord our God, please, save us from his hand so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know [without any doubt] that You alone, O Lord, are God.”