^17 (A)The Lord will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father's house such days as have not come since the day that ^(B)Ephraim departed from Judah—the king of Assyria!”

Judgment on Arrogant Assyria

⁷ therefore, behold, the Lord is bringing up against them ^(A)the waters of ^(B)the River,^[a] mighty and many, the king of Assyria and all his glory. And it ^(C)will rise over all its channels and go over all its banks, ⁸ and it will sweep on into Judah, it will overflow and pass on, ^(D)reaching even to the neck, and its ^(E)outspread wings will fill the breadth of your land, ^(F)O Immanuel.”

Sennacherib Invades Judah

36 ^(A)In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, ^(B)Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them. ^2 (C)And the king of Assyria sent the Rabshakeh^[a] from ^(D)Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem, with a great army. And he stood ^(E)by the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Washer's Field. ³ And there came out to him ^(F)Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and ^(G)Shebna the secretary, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder.

⁴ And the Rabshakeh said to them, “Say to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the ^(H)great king, the king of Assyria: On what do you rest this trust of yours? ⁵ Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? In whom do you now trust, that you have rebelled against me? ^6 (I)Behold, you are trusting in Egypt, that broken reed of a staff, which will pierce the hand of any man who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him. ⁷ But if you say to me, “We trust in the Lord our God,” is it not he ^(J)whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, “You shall worship before this altar”? ⁸ Come now, make a wager with my master the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them. ⁹ How then can you repulse ^(K)a single captain among the least of my master's servants, when ^(L)you trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? ¹⁰ Moreover, is it without the Lord that I have come up against this land to destroy it? ^(M)The Lord said to me, “Go up against this land and destroy it.”’”

¹¹ Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants ^(N)in Aramaic, for we understand it. Do not speak to us in the language of Judah within the hearing of the people who are on the wall.” ¹² But the Rabshakeh said, “Has my master sent me to speak these words to your master and to you, and not to the men sitting on the wall, who are doomed with you to eat their own dung and drink their own urine?”

¹³ Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out in a loud voice in the language of Judah: “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria! ¹⁴ Thus says the king: ^(O)‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you. ¹⁵ Do not let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord by saying, “The Lord will surely deliver us. This city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” ¹⁶ Do not listen to Hezekiah. For thus says the king of Assyria: Make your peace with me^[b] and come out to me. Then each one of you will eat of his own vine, and each one of his own fig tree, and each one of you will drink the water of his own cistern, ¹⁷ until ^(P)I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards. ¹⁸ Beware lest Hezekiah mislead you by saying, “The Lord will deliver us.” Has any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? ^19 (Q)Where are the gods of ^(R)Hamath and ^(S)Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? ^(T)Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? ^20 (U)Who among all the gods of these lands have delivered their lands out of my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’”

²¹ But they were silent and answered him not a word, for the king's command was, “Do not answer him.” ^22 (V)Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him the words of the Rabshakeh.

³² “Now, therefore, our God, ^(A)the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love, let not all the hardship seem little to you that has come upon us, upon our kings, our princes, our priests, our prophets, our fathers, and all your people, ^(B)since the time of the kings of Assyria until this day.

^6 (A)Against him came up Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon ^(B)and bound him in chains ^(C)to take him to Babylon. ^7 (D)Nebuchadnezzar also carried part of the vessels of the house of the Lord to Babylon and put them in his palace in Babylon. ^8 (E)Now the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, and the abominations that he did, and what was found against him, behold, they are written in the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah. And Jehoiachin his son reigned in his place.

^9 (F)Jehoiachin was eighteen^[a] years old when he became king, and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. ¹⁰ In ^(G)the spring of the year King Nebuchadnezzar sent and brought him to Babylon, ^(H)with the precious vessels of the house of the Lord, and made his brother ^(I)Zedekiah king over Judah and Jerusalem.

^11 (J)Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. ¹² He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord his God. He did not humble himself before ^(K)Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke from the mouth of the Lord. ^13 (L)He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God. ^(M)He stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the Lord, the God of Israel. ¹⁴ All the officers of the priests and the people likewise were exceedingly unfaithful, following all the abominations of the nations. And they polluted the house of the Lord that he had made holy in Jerusalem.

¹⁵ The Lord, the God of their fathers, ^(N)sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. ^16 (O)But they kept mocking the messengers of God, ^(P)despising his words and scoffing at his prophets, ^(Q)until the wrath of the Lord rose against his people, until there was no remedy.

Jerusalem Captured and Burned

^17 (R)Therefore he brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or aged. He gave them all into his hand. ^18 (S)And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king and of his princes, all these he brought to Babylon. ^19 (T)And they burned the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem and burned all its palaces with fire and destroyed all its precious vessels. ²⁰ He ^(U)took into exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, ^(V)and they became servants to him and to his sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia,

^11 (A)Therefore the Lord brought upon them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, who captured Manasseh with hooks and ^(B)bound him with chains of bronze and brought him to Babylon.

Sennacherib Invades Judah

32 ^(A)After these things and these acts of faithfulness, Sennacherib king of Assyria came and invaded Judah and encamped against the fortified cities, thinking to win them for himself. ² And when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come and intended to fight against Jerusalem, ³ he planned with his officers and his mighty men to stop the water of the springs that were outside the city; and they helped him. ⁴ A great many people were gathered, and they stopped all the springs and ^(B)the brook that flowed through the land, saying, “Why should the kings of Assyria come and find much water?” ⁵ He set to work resolutely and built up ^(C)all the wall that was broken down and raised towers upon it,^[a] and outside it he built another wall, and he strengthened the ^(D)Millo in the city of David. He also made weapons and shields in abundance. ⁶ And he set combat commanders over the people and gathered them together to him in the square at the gate of the city and spoke ^(E)encouragingly to them, saying, ^7 (F)“Be strong and courageous. ^(G)Do not be afraid or dismayed before the king of Assyria and all the horde that is with him, ^(H)for there are more with us than with him. ⁸ With him is ^(I)an arm of flesh, ^(J)but with us is the Lord our God, to help us and to fight our battles.” And the people took confidence from the words of Hezekiah king of Judah.

Sennacherib Blasphemes

⁹ After this, Sennacherib king of Assyria, who was besieging Lachish with all his forces, sent his servants to Jerusalem to Hezekiah king of Judah and to all the people of Judah who were in Jerusalem, saying, ¹⁰ “Thus says Sennacherib king of Assyria, ‘On what are you trusting, that you endure the siege in Jerusalem? ¹¹ Is not Hezekiah misleading you, that he may give you over to die by famine and by thirst, when he tells you, “The Lord our God will deliver us from the hand of the king of Assyria”? ^12 (K)Has not this same Hezekiah taken away his high places and his altars and commanded Judah and Jerusalem, “Before one altar you shall worship, and on it you shall burn your sacrifices”? ¹³ Do you not know what I and my fathers have done to all the peoples of other lands? Were the gods of the nations of those lands at all able to deliver their lands out of my hand? ¹⁴ Who among all the gods of those nations that my fathers devoted to destruction was able to deliver his people from my hand, that your God should be able to deliver you from my hand? ¹⁵ Now, therefore, do not let Hezekiah deceive you or mislead you in this fashion, and do not believe him, for no god of any nation or kingdom has been able to deliver his people from my hand or from the hand of my fathers. How much less will your God deliver you out of my hand!’”

¹⁶ And his servants said still more against the Lord God and against his servant Hezekiah. ¹⁷ And he wrote letters to cast contempt on the Lord, the God of Israel, and to speak against him, saying, “Like the gods of the nations of the lands who have not delivered their people from my hands, so the God of Hezekiah will not deliver his people from my hand.” ¹⁸ And they shouted it with a loud voice in the language of Judah to the people of Jerusalem who were on the wall, to frighten and terrify them, in order that they might take the city. ¹⁹ And they spoke of the God of Jerusalem as they spoke of the gods of the peoples of the earth, which are the work of men's hands.

The Lord Delivers Jerusalem

²⁰ Then Hezekiah the king and Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, prayed because of this and cried to heaven. ²¹ And the Lord sent an angel, who cut off all the mighty warriors and commanders and officers in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned with ^(L)shame of face to his own land. And when he came into the house of his god, some of his own sons struck him down there with the sword. ²² So the Lord saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib king of Assyria and from the hand of all his enemies, and he provided for them on every side. ²³ And many ^(M)brought gifts to the Lord to Jerusalem and precious things to Hezekiah king of Judah, so that he was exalted in the sight of all nations from that time onward.

Hezekiah's Pride and Achievements

^24 (N)In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death, and he prayed to the Lord, and he answered him and gave him a sign. ²⁵ But Hezekiah ^(O)did not make return according to the benefit done to him, for ^(P)his heart was proud. Therefore ^(Q)wrath came upon him and Judah and Jerusalem. ²⁶ But Hezekiah ^(R)humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of the Lord did not come upon them in the days of Hezekiah.

²⁷ And Hezekiah had very great riches and honor, and he made for himself treasuries for silver, for gold, for precious stones, for spices, for shields, and for all kinds of ^(S)costly vessels; ²⁸ storehouses also for the yield of grain, wine, and oil; and stalls for all kinds of cattle, and sheepfolds. ²⁹ He likewise provided cities for himself, and flocks and herds in abundance, for God had given him very great possessions. ³⁰ This same Hezekiah ^(T)closed the upper outlet of the waters of ^(U)Gihon and directed them down to the west side of the city of David. And Hezekiah prospered in all his works. ³¹ And so in the matter of the envoys of the princes of Babylon, ^(V)who had been sent to him to inquire about ^(W)the sign that had been done in the land, God left him to himself, ^(X)in order to test him and to know all that was in his heart.

³² Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah and his good deeds, behold, they are written ^(Y)in the vision of Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, ^(Z)in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel. ³³ And Hezekiah slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the ^(AA)upper part of the tombs of the sons of David, and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem did him honor at his death. And Manasseh his son reigned in his place.

¹⁹ For the Lord humbled Judah because of Ahaz king of Israel, for he had made ^(A)Judah act sinfully^[a] and had been very unfaithful to the Lord. ²⁰ So ^(B)Tiglath-pileser^[b] king of Assyria came against him and afflicted him instead of strengthening him. ^21 (C)For Ahaz took a portion from the house of the Lord and the house of the king and of the princes, and gave tribute to the king of Assyria, but it did not help him.