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: ^(A)‘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^[a] 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 ^(B)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?

⁵ When the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah, ⁶ Isaiah said to them, “Say to your master, ‘Thus says the Lord: Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the young men of the king of Assyria have reviled me. ⁷ Behold, ^(A)I will put a spirit in him, so that ^(B)he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land, and ^(C)I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.’”

Hezekiah's Prayer for Deliverance

¹⁴ Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord. ¹⁵ And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord: ¹⁶ “O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, ^(A)enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; ^(B)you have made heaven and earth. ^17 (C)Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear; open your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear ^(D)all the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God. ¹⁸ Truly, O Lord, ^(E)the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their lands, ¹⁹ 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 were destroyed. ²⁰ So now, O Lord our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the Lord.”

³³ “Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow there or come before it with a shield or ^(A)cast up a siege mound against it. ³⁴ By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, declares the Lord. ^35 (B)For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for ^(C)the sake of my servant David.”

^36 (D)And the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. ³⁷ Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned home and lived at ^(E)Nineveh.