Old/New Testament
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,[a] 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.
20 Hezekiah now became deathly sick, and Isaiah the prophet went to visit him.
“Set your affairs in order and prepare to die,” Isaiah told him. “The Lord says you won’t recover.”
2 Hezekiah turned his face to the wall.
3 “O Lord,” he pleaded, “remember how I’ve always tried to obey you and to please you in everything I do. . . . ” Then he broke down and cried.
4 So before Isaiah had left the courtyard, the Lord spoke to him again.
5 “Go back to Hezekiah, the leader of my people, and tell him that the Lord God of his ancestor David has heard his prayer and seen his tears. I will heal him, and three days from now he will be out of bed and at the Temple! 6 I will add fifteen years to his life and save him and this city from the king of Assyria. And it will all be done for the glory of my own name and for the sake of my servant David.”
7 Isaiah then instructed Hezekiah to boil some dried figs and to make a paste of them and spread it on the boil. And he recovered!
8 Meanwhile, King Hezekiah had said to Isaiah, “Do a miracle to prove to me that the Lord will heal me and that I will be able to go to the Temple again three days from now.”
9 “All right, the Lord will give you a proof,” Isaiah told him. “Do you want the shadow on the sundial to go forward ten points or backward ten points?”
10 “The shadow always moves forward,” Hezekiah replied; “make it go backward.”
11 So Isaiah asked the Lord to do this, and he caused the shadow to move ten points backward on the sundial of Ahaz![b]
12 At that time Merodach-baladan (the son of King Baladan of Babylon) sent ambassadors with greetings and a present to Hezekiah, for he had learned of his sickness. 13 Hezekiah welcomed them and showed them all his treasures—the silver, gold, spices, aromatic oils, the armory—everything.
14 Then Isaiah went to King Hezekiah and asked him, “What did these men want? Where are they from?”
“From far away in Babylon,” Hezekiah replied.
15 “What have they seen in your palace?” Isaiah asked.
And Hezekiah replied, “Everything. I showed them all my treasures.”
16 Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Listen to the word of the Lord: 17 The time will come when everything in this palace shall be carried to Babylon. All the treasures of your ancestors will be taken—nothing shall be left. 18 Some of your own sons will be taken away and made into eunuchs who will serve in the palace of the king of Babylon.”
19 “All right,” Hezekiah replied, “if this is what the Lord wants, it is good.” But he was really thinking, “At least there will be peace and security during the remainder of my own life!”
20 The rest of the history of Hezekiah and his great deeds—including the pool and conduit he made and how he brought water into the city—are recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Judah. 21 When he died, his son Manasseh became the new king.
21 1-2 New king of Judah: Manasseh
His age at the beginning of his reign: 12 years old
Length of reign: 55 years, in Jerusalem
Mother’s name: Hephzibah
Character of his reign: evil; he did the same things the nations had done that were thrown out of the land to make room for the people of Israel
3-5 He rebuilt the hilltop shrines that his father Hezekiah had destroyed. He built altars for Baal and made a shameful Asherah idol, just as Ahab the king of Israel had done. Heathen altars to the sun god, moon god, and the gods of the stars were placed even in the Temple of the Lord—in the very city and building that the Lord had selected to honor his own name. 6 And he sacrificed one of his sons as a burnt offering on a heathen altar. He practiced black magic and used fortune-telling, and patronized mediums and wizards. So the Lord was very angry, for Manasseh was an evil man, in God’s sight. 7 Manasseh even set up a shameful Asherah idol in the Temple—the very place that the Lord had spoken to David and Solomon about when he said, “I will place my name forever in this Temple, and in Jerusalem—the city I have chosen from among all the cities of the tribes of Israel. 8 If the people of Israel will only follow the instructions I gave them through Moses, I will never again expel them from this land of their fathers.”
9 But the people did not listen to the Lord, and Manasseh enticed them to do even more evil than the surrounding nations had done, even though Jehovah had destroyed those nations for their evil ways when the people of Israel entered the land.
10 Then the Lord declared through the prophets, 11 “Because King Manasseh has done these evil things and is even more wicked than the Amorites who were in this land long ago, and because he has led the people of Judah into idolatry: 12 I will bring such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of those who hear about it will tingle with horror. 13 I will punish Jerusalem as I did Samaria, and as I did King Ahab of Israel and his descendants. I will wipe away the people of Jerusalem as a man wipes a dish and turns it upside down to dry. 14 Then I will reject even those few of my people who are left, and I will hand them over to their enemies. 15 For they have done great evil and have angered me ever since I brought their ancestors from Egypt.”
16 In addition to the idolatry which God hated and into which Manasseh led the people of Judah, he murdered great numbers of innocent people. And Jerusalem was filled from one end to the other with the bodies of his victims.
17 The rest of the history of Manasseh’s sinful reign is recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Judah. 18 When he died he was buried in the garden of his palace at Uzza, and his son Amon became the new king.
19-20 New king of Judah: Amon
His age at the beginning of his reign: 22 years old
Length of reign: 2 years, in Jerusalem
Mother’s name: Meshullemeth (daughter of Haruz, of Jotbah)
Character of his reign: evil
21 He did all the evil things his father had done: he worshiped the same idols 22 and turned his back on the Lord God of his ancestors. He refused to listen to God’s instructions. 23 But his aides conspired against him and killed him in the palace. 24 Then a posse of civilians killed all the assassins and placed Amon’s son Josiah upon the throne. 25 The rest of Amon’s biography is recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Judah. 26 He was buried in a crypt in the garden of Uzza, and his son Josiah became the new king.
4 1-2 When the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard about the greater crowds coming to him than to John to be baptized and to become his disciples—(though Jesus himself didn’t baptize them, but his disciples did)— 3 he left Judea and returned to the province of Galilee.
4 He had to go through Samaria on the way, 5-6 and around noon as he approached the village of Sychar, he came to Jacob’s Well, located on the parcel of ground Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jesus was tired from the long walk in the hot sun and sat wearily beside the well.
7 Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus asked her for a drink. 8 He was alone at the time as his disciples had gone into the village to buy some food. 9 The woman was surprised that a Jew would ask a “despised Samaritan” for anything—usually they wouldn’t even speak to them!—and she remarked about this to Jesus.
10 He replied,
11 “But you don’t have a rope or a bucket,” she said, “and this is a very deep well! Where would you get this living water? 12 And besides, are you greater than our ancestor Jacob? How can you offer better water than this which he and his sons and cattle enjoyed?”
13 Jesus replied that people soon became thirsty again after drinking this water. 14 “But the water I give them,” he said, “becomes a perpetual spring within them, watering them forever with eternal life.”
15 “Please, sir,” the woman said, “give me some of that water! Then I’ll never be thirsty again and won’t have to make this long trip out here every day.”
16 “Go and get your husband,” Jesus told her.
17-18 “But I’m not married,” the woman replied.
“All too true!” Jesus said. “For you have had five husbands, and you aren’t even married to the man you’re living with now.”
19 “Sir,” the woman said, “you must be a prophet. 20 But say, tell me, why is it that you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place of worship, while we Samaritans claim it is here at Mount Gerizim,[a] where our ancestors worshiped?”
21-24 Jesus replied,
25 The woman said, “Well, at least I know that the Messiah will come—the one they call Christ—and when he does, he will explain everything to us.”
26 Then Jesus told her, “I am the Messiah!”
27 Just then his disciples arrived. They were surprised to find him talking to a woman, but none of them asked him why, or what they had been discussing.
28-29 Then the woman left her waterpot beside the well and went back to the village and told everyone, “Come and meet a man who told me everything I ever did! Can this be the Messiah?” 30 So the people came streaming from the village to see him.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.