Isaiah 37

¹ On hearing this, King Hezekiah tore his garments, covered himself with sackcloth and went to the Temple of Yahweh.

² He sent the master of the palace, Eliakim, Shebna the secretary and the elders of the priests, covered in sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz.

³ They said to him, ‘This is what Hezekiah says, “Today is a day of suffering, of punishment, of disgrace. Children come to birth and there is no strength to bring them forth.

⁴ May Yahweh your God hear the words of the cupbearer-in-chief whom his master, the king of Assyria, has sent to insult the living God, and may Yahweh your God punish the words he has heard! Offer your prayer for the remnant that is left.”‘

⁵ When the ministers of King Hezekiah had come to Isaiah,

⁶ he replied, ‘Say this to your master, “Yahweh says this: Do not be afraid of the words you have heard or the blasphemies the minions of the king of Assyria have uttered against me.

⁷ I am going to put a spirit in him, and when he hears a rumour he will return to his own country and in that country I will bring him down with the sword.”‘

⁸ The cupbearer went back and rejoined the king of Assyria at Libnah, which he was attacking. The cupbearer had already learnt that the king of Assyria had left Lachish,

⁹ since he had received this news about Tirhakah king of Cush: ‘He has set out to fight you’.

¹⁰ ‘Tell this to Hezekiah king of Judah, “Do not let your God on whom you are relying deceive you when he says: Jerusalem shall not fall into the power of the king of Assyria.

¹¹ You have learnt by now what the kings of Assyria have done to every country, putting them all under the ban. Are you likely to be spared?

¹² What power to help did the gods have of those nations my fathers destroyed, Gozen, Haran Rezeph and the Edenites who were in Tel Basar?

¹³ Where are the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the kings of Sepharvaim, of Hena, of Ivvah?”‘

¹⁴ Hezekiah took the letter from the hands of the messengers and read it; he then went up to the Temple of Yahweh and spread it out before Yahweh.

¹⁵ Hezekiah said this prayer in the presence of Yahweh,

¹⁶ ‘Yahweh Sabaoth, God of Israel, enthroned on the cherubs, you alone are God of all the kingdoms of the earth, you have made heaven and earth.

¹⁷ ‘Give ear, Yahweh, and listen. Open your eyes, Yahweh, and see. Hear the words of Sennacherib who has sent to insult the living God.

¹⁸ It is true, Yahweh, that the kings of Assyria have exterminated all the nations and their countries,

¹⁹ they have thrown their gods on the fire, for these were not gods but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, and hence they have destroyed them.

²⁰ But now, Yahweh our God, save us from his hand, and let all the kingdoms of the earth know that you alone are God, Yahweh.

²¹ Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah. ‘This’ he said ‘is what Yahweh, the God of Israel, says in answer to the prayer you have addressed to me about Sennacherib king of Assyria.

²² Here is the oracle that Yahweh has pronounced against him:

²³ “She despises you, she scorns you, the virgin, daughter of Zion; she tosses her head behind you, the daughter of Jerusalem. Whom have you insulted, whom did you blaspheme? Against whom raised your voice and lifted your insolent eyes? Against the Holy One of Israel.

²⁴ Through your minions you have insulted the Lord you have said: With my many chariots

²⁵ Yes I have dug wells and drunk of alien waters; I have put down my feet, and have dried up all the rivers of Egypt.

²⁶ “Do you hear? Long ago I planned for it, from days of old I designed it, now I carry it out. Your part was to bring down in heaps of ruins fortified cities.

²⁷ Their inhabitants, hands feeble, dismayed, discomfited, were like plants of the field, like tender grass, like grass of housetop and meadow, under the east wind. I know whenever you rise

²⁸ and whenever you sit, your going out, your coming in.

²⁹ Because you have raved against me and your insolence has come to my ears, I will put my ring through your nostrils, my bit between your lips, to make you return by the road on which you came.

³⁰ “This shall be the sign for you: This year will be eaten the self-sown grain, next year what sprouts in the fallow, but in the third year sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

³¹ The surviving remnant of the House of Judah shall bring forth new roots below and fruits above.

³² For a remnant shall go out from Jerusalem, and survivors from Mount Zion. The jealous love of Yahweh Sabaoth will accomplish this.

³³ ‘This, then, is what Yahweh says about the king of Assyria: “He will not enter this city, he will let fly no arrow against it, confront it with no shield, throw up no earthwork against it.

³⁴ By the road that he came on he will return; he shall not enter this city. It is Yahweh who speaks.

³⁵ I will protect this city and save it for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.”‘

³⁶ That same night the angel of Yahweh went out and struck down a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp. In the early morning, when it was time to get up, there they lay; so many corpses.

³⁷ Sennacherib struck camp and left; he returned home and stayed in Nineveh.

³⁸ One day when he was worshipping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword and escaped into the land of Ararat. His son Esarhaddon succeeded him.