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 to 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 by 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

¹⁰of Judah to 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,

¹⁶“Almighty Lord, God of Israel, seated above the winged creatures, you alone are God, ruling all the kingdoms of the world. You created the earth and the sky.

¹⁷Now, Lord, hear us and look at what is happening to us. Listen to all the things that Sennacherib is saying to insult you, the living God.

¹⁸We all know, Lord, that the emperors of Assyria have destroyed many nations, made their lands desolate,

¹⁹and burned up their gods—which were no gods at all, only images of wood and stone made by human hands.

²⁰Now, Lord our God, rescue us from the Assyrians, so that all the nations of the world will know that you alone are God.”

Isaiah's Message to the King

²¹Then Isaiah sent a message telling King Hezekiah that in answer to the king's prayer

²²the Lord had said, “The city of Jerusalem laughs at you, Sennacherib, and makes fun of you.

²³Whom do you think you have been insulting and ridiculing? You have been disrespectful to me, the holy God of Israel.

²⁴You sent your servants 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.

²⁵You boasted that you dug wells and drank water in foreign lands, and that the feet of your soldiers tramped the Nile River dry.

²⁶“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.

²⁷The 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.

²⁸“But I know everything about you, what you do and where you go. I know how you rage against me.

²⁹I 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 will take you back by the same road you came.”

³⁰Then 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 grain and harvest it, and plant vines and eat grapes.

³¹Those in Judah who survive will flourish like plants that send roots deep into the ground and produce fruit.

³²There will be people in Jerusalem and on Mount Zion who will survive, because the Lord Almighty is determined to make this happen.

³³“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.

³⁴He will go back by the same road he came, without entering this city. I, the Lord, have spoken.

³⁵I 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.’”

³⁶An angel of the Lord went to the Assyrian camp and killed 185,000 soldiers. At dawn the next day there they lay, all dead!

³⁷Then the Assyrian emperor Sennacherib withdrew and returned to Nineveh.

³⁸One 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.

King Hezekiah's Illness and Recovery

¹About this time King Hezekiah became sick and almost died. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to see him and said to him, “The Lord tells you that you are to put everything in order because you will not recover. Get ready to die.”

²Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed:

³“Remember, Lord, that I have served you faithfully and loyally, and that I have always tried to do what you wanted me to.” And he began to cry bitterly.

⁴Then the Lord commanded Isaiah

⁵to go back to Hezekiah and say to him, “I, the Lord, the God of your ancestor David, have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will let you live fifteen years longer.

⁶I will rescue you and this city of Jerusalem from the emperor of Assyria, and I will continue to protect the city.”

⁷Isaiah replied, “The Lord will give you a sign to prove that he will keep his promise.

⁸On the stairway built by King Ahaz, the Lord will make the shadow go back ten steps.” And the shadow moved back ten steps.

⁹After Hezekiah recovered from his illness, he wrote this song of praise:

¹⁰I thought that in the prime of life I was going to the world of the dead, Never to live out my life.

¹¹I thought that in this world of the living I would never again see the Lord Or any living person.

¹²My life was cut off and ended, Like a tent that is taken down, Like cloth that is cut from a loom. I thought that God was ending my life.

¹³All night I cried out with pain, As if a lion were breaking my bones. I thought that God was ending my life.

¹⁴My voice was thin and weak, And I moaned like a dove. My eyes grew tired from looking to heaven. Lord, rescue me from all this trouble.

¹⁵What can I say? The Lord has done this. My heart is bitter, and I cannot sleep.

¹⁶Lord, I will live for you, for you alone; Heal me and let me live.

¹⁷My bitterness will turn into peace. You save my life from all danger; You forgive all my sins.

¹⁸No one in the world of the dead can praise you; The dead cannot trust in your faithfulness.

¹⁹It is the living who praise you, As I praise you now. Parents tell their children how faithful you are.

²⁰Lord, you have healed me. We will play harps and sing your praise, Sing praise in your Temple as long as we live.

²¹Isaiah told the king to put a paste made of figs on his boil, and he would get well.

²²Then King Hezekiah asked, “What is the sign to prove that I will be able to go to the Temple?”

¹Jerusalem, take off the clothes you have worn in your mourning and distress, and put on the eternal splendor of God's glory.

²Put around you the cloak of God's righteousness. Place on your head the crown of the glory of the Eternal God.

³God will show your splendor to every nation on earth.

⁴Forever he will say to you: Your security comes from your righteousness, and your splendor from your devotion to me.

⁵Get up, Jerusalem, stand on the mountaintop; see where God, the Holy One, is bringing your children together from the east and from the west. They are rejoicing that God has remembered them.

⁶Jerusalem, your children were led away by their enemies; they left you on foot, but God is bringing them back to you, carried in royal splendor.

⁷God has commanded that every high mountain and the everlasting hills shall be made low; he has commanded that the valleys shall be filled and the ground leveled, so that the people of Israel may come safely home in the glory of God.

⁸At the command of God, forests of fragrant trees will spring up to provide shade for the people of Israel.

⁹God will lead Israel home. They will return with great joy, guided by his mercy and righteousness, surrounded by the light of his glorious presence.

²⁵Be generous, and you will be prosperous. Help others, and you will be helped.

²⁶People curse someone who hoards grain, waiting for a higher price, but they praise the one who puts it up for sale.

²⁷If your goals are good, you will be respected, but if you are looking for trouble, that is what you will get.

²⁸Those who depend on their wealth will fall like the leaves of autumn, but the righteous will prosper like the leaves of summer.