14Hezekiah took the letter from the messengers and read it. Hezekiah then went up to the House of the LORD and spread it out before the LORD. 15And Hezekiah prayed to the LORD and said, “O LORD of Hosts, Enthroned on the Cherubim! You alone are God of all the kingdoms of the earth. You made the heavens and the earth. 16O LORD, incline Your ear and hear; open Your eyes and see. Hear the words that Sennacherib has sent to blaspheme the living God! 17True, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have annihilated the nations and their lands, 18and have committed their gods to the flames and have destroyed them; for they are not gods, but man’s handiwork of wood and stone. 19But now, O LORD our God, deliver us from his hands, and let all the kingdoms of the earth know that You alone, O LORD, are God.”
20Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent this message to Hezekiah: “Thus said the LORD, the God of Israel: I have heard the prayer you have offered to Me concerning King Sennacherib of Assyria. 21This is the word that the LORD has spoken concerning him:
“Fair Maiden Zion despises you,
She mocks at you;
Fair Jerusalem shakes
Her head at you.
22Whom have you blasphemed and reviled?
Against whom made loud your voice
And haughtily raised your eyes?
Against the Holy One of Israel!
23Through your envoys you have blasphemed my Lord.
Because you thought,
‘Thanks to my vast chariotry,
It is I who have climbed the highest mountains,
To the remotest parts of the Lebanon,
And have cut down its loftiest cedars,
Its choicest cypresses,
And have reached its d-remotest lodge,-d
e-Its densest forest.-e
24It is I who have drawnf and drunk the waters of strangers;
I have dried up with the soles of my feet
All the streams of Egypt.’
25Have you not heard? Of old
I planned that very thing,
I designed it long ago,
And now have fulfilled it.
And it has come to pass,
Laying waste fortified towns
In desolate heaps.
26Their inhabitants are helpless,
Dismayed and shamed.
They were but grass of the field
And green herbage,
Grass of the roofs that is blasted
Before the g-standing grain.-g
27I know your stayings
And your goings and comings,
And how you have raged against Me.
28Because you have raged against Me,
And your tumult has reached My ears,
I will place My hook in your nose
And My bit between your jaws;
And I will make you go back by the road
By which you came.
29“And this is the sign for you:h This year you eat what grows of itself, and the next year what springs from that; and in the third year, sow and reap, and plant vineyards and eat their fruit. 30And the survivors of the House of Judah that have escaped shall regenerate its stock below and produce boughs above.
31For a remnant shall come forth from Jerusalem,
Survivors from Mount Zion.
The zeal of the LORD of Hosts
Shall bring this to pass.
32Assuredly, thus said the LORD concerning the king of Assyria:
He shall not enter this city:
He shall not shoot an arrow at it,
Or advance upon it with a shield,
Or pile up a siege mound against it.
33He shall go back
By the way he came;
He shall not enter this city
—declares the LORD.
34I will protect and save this city for My sake,
And for the sake of My servant David.”
35That night an angel of the LORD went out and struck down one hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp, and the following morning they were all dead corpses.
36So King Sennacherib of Assyria broke camp and retreated, and stayed in Nineveh. 37While he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sarezer struck him down with the sword. They fled to the land of Ararat, and his son Esarhaddon succeeded him as king.
20 In those days Hezekiah fell dangerously ill. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came and said to him, “Thus said the LORD: Set your affairs in order, for you are going to die; you will not get well.” 2Thereupon Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD. He said, 3“Please, O LORD, remember how I have walked before You sincerely and wholeheartedly, and have done what is pleasing to You.” And Hezekiah wept profusely.
4Before Isaiah had gone out of the middle court, the word of the LORD came to him: 5“Go back and say to Hezekiah, the ruler of My people: Thus said the LORD, the God of your father David: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears. I am going to heal you; on the third day you shall go up to the House of the LORD. 6And I will add fifteen years to your life. I will also rescue you and this city from the hands of the king of Assyria. I will protect this city for My sake and for the sake of My servant David.”—7Then Isaiah said, “Get a cake of figs.” And they got one, and they applied it to the rash, and he recovered.—8Hezekiah asked Isaiah, “What is the sign that the LORD will heal me and that I shall go up to the House of the LORD on the third day?” 9Isaiah replied, “This is the sign for you from the LORD that the LORD will do the thing that He has promised: Shalla the shadow advance ten steps or recede ten steps?” 10Hezekiah said, “It is easy for the shadow to lengthen ten steps, but not for the shadow to recede ten steps.” 11So the prophet Isaiah called to the LORD, and He made the shadow which had descended on the dialb of Ahaz recede ten steps.
12At that time, King Berodach-cbaladan son of Baladan of Babylon sent [envoys with] a letter and a gift to Hezekiah, for he had heard about Hezekiah’s illness. 13d-Hezekiah heard about them-d and he showed them all his treasurehouse—the silver, the gold, the spices, and the fragrant oil—and his armory, and everything that was to be found in his storehouses. There was nothing in his palace or in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them. 14Then the prophet Isaiah came to King Hezekiah. “What,” he demanded of him, “did those men say to you? Where have they come to you from?” “They have come,” Hezekiah replied, “from a far country, from Babylon.” 15Next he asked, “What have they seen in your palace?” And Hezekiah replied, “They have seen everything that is in my palace. There was nothing in my storehouses that I did not show them.”
16Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the LORD: 17A time is coming when everything in your palace which your ancestors have stored up to this day will be carried off to Babylon; nothing will remain behind, said the LORD. 18And some of your sons, your own issue, whom you will have fathered, will be taken to serve as eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.” 19Hezekiah declared to Isaiah, “The word of the LORD that you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “It means that e-safety is assured for-e my time.”
20The other events of Hezekiah’s reign, and all his exploits, and how he made the pool and the conduit and brought the water into the city, are recorded in the Annals of the Kings of Judah. 21Hezekiah slept with his fathers, and his son Manasseh succeeded him as king.
21 Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem; his mother’s name was Hephzibah. 2He did what was displeasing to the LORD, following the abhorrent practices of the nations that the LORD had dispossessed before the Israelites. 3He rebuilt the shrines that his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he erected altars for Baal and made a sacred post, as King Ahab of Israel had done. He bowed down to all the host of heaven and worshiped them, 4and he built altars for them in the House of the LORD, of which the LORD had said, “I will establish My name in Jerusalem.” 5He built altars for all the hosts of heaven in the two courts of the House of the LORD. 6He consigned his son to the fire; he practiced soothsaying and divination, and consulted ghosts and familiar spirits; he did much that was displeasing to the LORD, to vex Him. 7The sculptured image of Asherah that he made he placed in the House concerning which the LORD had said to David and to his son Solomon, “In this House and in Jerusalem, which I chose out of all the tribes of Israel, I will establish My name forever. 8And I will not again cause the feet of Israel to wander from the land that I gave to their fathers, if they will but faithfully observe all that I have commanded them—all the Teachings with which My servant Moses charged them.” 9But they did not obey, and Manasseh led them astray to do greater evil than the nations that the LORD had destroyed before the Israelites. 10Therefore the LORD spoke through His servants the prophets: 11“Because King Manasseh of Judah has done these abhorrent things— he has outdone in wickedness all that the Amorites did before his time— and because he led Judah to sin with his fetishes, 12assuredly, thus said the LORD, the God of Israel: I am going to bring such a disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that both
