The King Asks Isaiah's Advice

¹As soon as King Hezekiah heard their report, he tore his clothes in grief, put on sackcloth, and went to the Temple of the Lord.

²He sent Eliakim, the official in charge of the palace, Shebna, the court secretary, and the senior priests to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. They also were wearing sackcloth.

³This is the message which he told them to give Isaiah: “Today is a day of suffering; we are being punished and are in disgrace. We are like a woman who is ready to give birth, but is too weak to do it.

⁴The Assyrian emperor has sent his chief official to insult the living God. May the Lord your God hear these insults and punish those who spoke them. So pray to God for those of our people who survive.”

⁵When Isaiah received King Hezekiah's message,

⁶he sent back this answer: “The Lord tells you not to let the Assyrians frighten you with their claims that he cannot save you.

⁷The Lord will cause the emperor to hear a rumor that will make him go back to his own country, and the Lord will have him killed there.”

The Assyrians Send Another Threat

⁸The Assyrian official learned that the emperor had left Lachish and was fighting against the nearby city of Libnah; so he went there to consult him.

⁹Word reached the Assyrians that the Egyptian army, led by King Tirhakah of Ethiopia, was coming to attack them. When the emperor heard this, he sent a letter to King Hezekiah of Judah

¹⁰to tell him, “The god you are trusting in has told you that you will not fall into my hands, but don't let that deceive you.

¹¹You have heard what an Assyrian emperor does to any country he decides to destroy. Do you think that you can escape?

¹²My ancestors destroyed the cities of Gozan, Haran, and Rezeph, and killed the people of Betheden who lived in Telassar, and none of their gods could save them.

¹³Where are the kings of the cities of Hamath, Arpad, Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?”

¹⁴King Hezekiah took the letter from the messengers and read it. Then he went to the Temple, placed the letter there in the presence of the Lord,

¹⁵and prayed, “O Lord, the God of Israel, seated on your throne above the winged creatures, you alone are God, ruling all the kingdoms of the world. You created the earth and the sky.

¹⁶Now, Lord, look at what is happening to us. Listen to all the things that Sennacherib is saying to insult you, the living God.

¹⁷We all know, Lord, that the emperors of Assyria have destroyed many nations, made their lands desolate,

¹⁸and burned up their gods—which were no gods at all, only images of wood and stone made by human hands.

¹⁹Now, Lord our God, rescue us from the Assyrians, so that all the nations of the world will know that only you, O Lord, are God.”

Isaiah's Message to the King

²⁰Then Isaiah sent a message telling King Hezekiah that in answer to the king's prayer

²¹the Lord had said, “The city of Jerusalem laughs at you, Sennacherib, and makes fun of you.

²²Whom do you think you have been insulting and ridiculing? You have been disrespectful to me, the holy God of Israel.

²³You sent your messengers to boast to me that with all your chariots you had conquered the highest mountains of Lebanon. You boasted that there you cut down the tallest cedars and the finest cypress trees and that you reached the deepest parts of the forests.

²⁴You boasted that you dug wells and drank water in foreign lands and that the feet of your soldiers tramped the Nile River dry.

²⁵“Have you never heard that I planned all this long ago? And now I have carried it out. I gave you the power to turn fortified cities into piles of rubble.

²⁶The people who lived there were powerless; they were frightened and stunned. They were like grass in a field or weeds growing on a roof when the hot east wind blasts them.

²⁷“But I know everything about you, what you do and where you go. I know how you rage against me.

²⁸I have received the report of that rage and that pride of yours, and now I will put a hook through your nose and a bit in your mouth, and take you back by the same road you came.”

²⁹Then Isaiah said to King Hezekiah, “Here is a sign of what will happen. This year and next you will have only wild grain to eat, but the following year you will be able to plant your grain and harvest it, and plant vines and eat grapes.

³⁰Those in Judah who survive will flourish like plants that send roots deep into the ground and produce fruit.

³¹There will be people in Jerusalem and on Mount Zion who will survive, because the Lord is determined to make this happen.

³²“And this is what the Lord has said about the Assyrian emperor: ‘He will not enter this city or shoot a single arrow against it. No soldiers with shields will come near the city, and no siege mounds will be built around it.

³³He will go back by the same road he came, without entering this city. I, the Lord, have spoken.

³⁴I will defend this city and protect it, for the sake of my own honor and because of the promise I made to my servant David.’”

³⁵That night an angel of the Lord went to the Assyrian camp and killed 185,000 soldiers. At dawn the next day there they lay, all dead!

³⁶Then the Assyrian emperor Sennacherib withdrew and returned to Nineveh.

³⁷One day, when he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, two of his sons, Adrammelech and Sharezer, killed him with their swords and then escaped to the land of Ararat. Another of his sons, Esarhaddon, succeeded him as emperor.

Preparations for Passover

^1-3The people had not been able to celebrate the Passover Festival at the proper time in the first month, because not enough priests were ritually clean and not many people had assembled in Jerusalem. So King Hezekiah, his officials, and the people of Jerusalem agreed to celebrate it in the second month, and the king sent word to all the people of Israel and Judah. He took special care to send letters to the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, inviting them to come to the Temple in Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover in honor of the Lord, the God of Israel.

⁴The king and the people were pleased with their plan,

⁵so they invited all the Israelites, from Dan in the north to Beersheba in the south, to come together in Jerusalem and celebrate the Passover according to the Law, in larger numbers than ever before.

⁶Messengers went out at the command of the king and his officials through all Judah and Israel with the following invitation: “People of Israel, you have survived the Assyrian conquest of the land. Now return to the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and he will return to you.

⁷Do not be like your ancestors and your Israelite relatives who were unfaithful to the Lord their God. As you can see, he punished them severely.

⁸Do not be stubborn as they were, but obey the Lord. Come to the Temple in Jerusalem, which the Lord your God has made holy forever, and worship him so that he will no longer be angry with you.

⁹If you return to the Lord, then those who have taken your relatives away as prisoners will take pity on them and let them come back home. The Lord your God is kind and merciful, and if you return to him, he will accept you.”

¹⁰The messengers went to every city in the territory of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, and as far north as the tribe of Zebulun, but people laughed at them and made fun of them.

¹¹Still, there were some from the tribes of Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun who were willing to come to Jerusalem.

¹²God was also at work in Judah and united the people in their determination to obey his will by following the commands of the king and his officials.

Passover Is Celebrated

¹³A great number of people gathered in Jerusalem in the second month to celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread.

¹⁴They took all the altars that had been used in Jerusalem for offering sacrifices and burning incense and threw them into Kidron Valley.

¹⁵And on the fourteenth day of the month they killed the lambs for the Passover sacrifice. The priests and Levites who were not ritually clean became so ashamed that they dedicated themselves to the Lord, and now they could sacrifice burnt offerings in the Temple.

¹⁶They took their places in the Temple according to the instructions in the Law of Moses, the man of God. The Levites gave the blood of the sacrifices to the priests, who sprinkled it on the altar.

¹⁷Because many of the people were not ritually clean, they could not kill the Passover lambs, so the Levites did it for them and dedicated the lambs to the Lord.

¹⁸In addition, many of those who had come from the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun had not performed the ritual of purification, and so they were observing Passover improperly. King Hezekiah offered this prayer for them:

¹⁹“O Lord, the God of our ancestors, in your goodness forgive those who are worshiping you with all their heart, even though they are not ritually clean.”

²⁰The Lord answered Hezekiah's prayer; he forgave the people and did not harm them.

²¹For seven days the people who had gathered in Jerusalem celebrated the Festival of Unleavened Bread with great joy, and day after day the Levites and the priests praised the Lord with all their strength.

A Second Celebration

²²Hezekiah praised the Levites for their skill in conducting the worship of the Lord. After the seven days during which they offered sacrifices in praise of the Lord, the God of their ancestors,

²³they all decided to celebrate for another seven days. So they celebrated with joy.

²⁴King Hezekiah contributed 1,000 bulls and 7,000 sheep for the people to kill and eat, and the officials gave them another 1,000 bulls and 10,000 sheep. A large number of priests went through the ritual of purification.

²⁵So everyone was happy—the people of Judah, the priests, the Levites, the people who had come from the north, and the foreigners who had settled permanently in Israel and Judah.

²⁶The city of Jerusalem was filled with joy, because nothing like this had happened since the days of King Solomon, the son of David.

²⁷The priests and the Levites asked the Lord's blessing on the people. In his home in heaven God heard their prayers and accepted them.

A Prayer for Help

¹Lord, hear my prayer! In your righteousness listen to my plea; answer me in your faithfulness!

²Don't put me, your servant, on trial; no one is innocent in your sight.

³My enemies have hunted me down and completely defeated me. They have put me in a dark prison, and I am like those who died long ago.

⁴So I am ready to give up; I am in deep despair.

⁵I remember the days gone by; I think about all that you have done, I bring to mind all your deeds.

⁶I lift up my hands to you in prayer; like dry ground my soul is thirsty for you.

⁷Answer me now, Lord! I have lost all hope. Don't hide yourself from me, or I will be among those who go down to the world of the dead.

⁸Remind me each morning of your constant love, for I put my trust in you. My prayers go up to you; show me the way I should go.

⁹I go to you for protection, Lord; rescue me from my enemies.

¹⁰You are my God; teach me to do your will. Be good to me, and guide me on a safe path.

¹¹Rescue me, Lord, as you have promised; in your goodness save me from my troubles!

¹²Because of your love for me, kill my enemies and destroy all my oppressors, for I am your servant.