Isaiah 37
37
The King Asks Isaiah's Advice
(2 Kgs 19.1–7)
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 rumour that will make him go back to his own country, and the LORD will have him killed there.”
The Assyrians Send Another Threat
(2 Kgs 19.8–19)
8The Assyrian official learnt 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#37.9 Ethiopia: See Word List., was coming to attack them. When the emperor heard this, he sent a letter to King Hezekiah 10of Judah to say to 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#Ex 25.22“Almighty LORD, God of Israel, enthroned 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 burnt 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
(2 Kgs 19.20–37)
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 despises 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 River Nile 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.#37.27 Probable text when… them; Hebrew blasted before they are grown.
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 road on which you came.”
30Then Isaiah said to King Hezekiah, “This 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 sow your corn 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“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 round it. 34He will go back by the road on which 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 honour 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 worshipping 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.
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Isaiah 37: GNBDK
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Good News Bible with Deuterocanonicals/Apocrypha. Scripture taken from the Good News Bible (r) (Today's English Version Second Edition, UK/British Edition). Copyright © 1992 British & Foreign Bible Society. Used by permission.
Isaiah 37
37
XXXVII
1And it came to pass when king Hezekiah heard it, that he rent his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of Jehovah. 2And he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests covered with sackcloth, unto Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz. 3And they said unto him: Thus saith Hezekiah, This day is a day of distress, and of rebuke, and of contumely: for the children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth. 4It may be that Jehovah, thy God, will hear the words of Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria hath sent to reproach the living God, and will reprove the words which Jehovah, thy God, hath heard: wherefore lift up thy prayer for the remnant that is yet left.
5And the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah. 6And Isaiah said unto them: Thus shall ye say to your master, Thus saith Jehovah: Be not afraid because of the words which thou hast heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. 7Behold, I will bring a tremour upon him; and he shall hear a rumour, and return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.
8So Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyriah warring against Libnah: for he had heard that he was departed from Lachish. 9And he heard say concerning Tirhakah, king of Cush, He is come forth to make war with thee. And when he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying: 10Thus shall ye speak unto Hezekiah, king of Judah, saying Let not thy God, in whom thou trustest, deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. 11Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all these lands by destroying them utterly; and shalt thou be delivered? 12Have the gods of the nations delivered those, whom my father have destroyed? as Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden which were in Telassar? 13Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Henah, and of Ivah?
14And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and he went up unto the house of Jehovah, and Hezekiah spread it before Jehovah. 15And Hezekiah prayed unto Jehovah, saying: 16O Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, who dwellest between the Cherubims, Thou art the God, even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth: Thou hast made the heavens, and the earth. Incline thine ear, O Jehovah, and hear; 17open thine eyes, O Jehovah, and see; and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he hath sent to reproach the living God. 18In truth, O Jehovah, the kings of Assyria have destroyed all the nations, and their lands; 19and have cast their gods into the fire: for they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone: therefore they have destroyed them. 20And now, O Jehovah, our God! save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art Jehovah, even thou only.
21Then Isaiah, the son of Amoz, sent unto Hezekiah, saying: Thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel: Whereas thou hast prayed unto me, concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria: 22This is the word which Jehovah hath spoken against him:
The virgin daughter of Zion hath despised thee, she hath laughed thee to scorn;
The daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee.
23Whom hast thou reproached, and blasphemed;
And against whom hast thou exalted thy voice?
And hast lifted up thine eyes on high?
Even against the Holy One of Israel.
24By thy servants hast thou reproached the Lord, and hast said:
By the multitude of my chariots have I ascended
The height of the mountains, the sides of Lebanon;
And I will cut down his tallest cedars, his choicest fir-trees;
And I will enter into his extreme height, into the forests of his fruitful field.
25I have digged, and drunk water;
And with, the sole of my feet have I dried up all the rivers of the besieged places.
26Hast thou not heard, that, from of old, I had disposed it?
And that, from ancient times, I had formed it?
Now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldest be to lay waste defenced cities into ruinous heaps.
27Therefore were their inhabitants of small power,
They were dismayed and confounded:
They were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb,
As the grass of the house-tops; and as the corn blasted before it be grown up.
28But thy sitting down, and thy going out, and thy coming in, have I known;
And thy rage against me.
29Because thy rage against me, and thy insolence,
Is come up into mine ears;
Therefore will I put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips;
And I will turn thee back by the way by which thou earnest.
30And this shall be a sign unto thee:
Eat this year that which groweth up of itself,
And the second year that which groweth up of the same;
And in the third year sow ye, and reap,
And plant vineyards, and eat the fruit thereof.
31And the escaped of the house of Judah, which remain,
Shall again strike root downward, and bear fruit upward.
32For from Jerusalem shall go forth the remnant,
And they that have escaped from mount Zion:
The zeal of Jehovah of hosts shall do this.
33Therefore thus saith Jehovah concerning the king of Assyria:
He shall not come into this city,
Nor shall he shoot an arrow there;
Nor shall he present a shield before it,
Nor shall he cast up a mound against it.
34By the way through which he came, by the same shall he return;
And into this city shall he not come, saith Jehovah.
35And I will protect this city to deliver it,
For mine own sake, and for my servant David’s sake.
36Then an angel of Jehovah went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred and fourscore and five thousand men; and when man arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. 37Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went, and returned; and dwelt at Nineveh. 38And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, smote him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat: and Esarhaddon, his son, reigned in his stead.
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Translated by Rev John Jones (Ioan Tegid).Published at Oxford in 1830, second edition 1842.