2 Kings 19

³⁷Then Hilkiah’s son Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the scribe, and Asaph’s son Joah the recorder came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and they relayed to him the words of the Rabshakeh.

²⁷When Ahab heard these words, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, and fasted. He lay down in sackcloth and walked around meekly.

²⁰In response, King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz cried out to heaven in prayer,

²¹and the Lord sent an angel who annihilated every mighty man of valor and every leader and commander in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he withdrew to his own land in disgrace. And when he entered the temple of his god, some of his own sons struck him down with the sword.

¹On hearing this report, King Hezekiah tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, and entered the house of the Lord.

²And he sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the scribe, and the leading priests, all wearing sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz

³⁴Then Jacob tore his clothes, put sackcloth around his waist, and mourned for his son many days.

²⁰Then Job stood up, tore his robe, and shaved his head. He fell to the ground and worshiped,

²¹saying: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

¹This is the vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem that Isaiah son of Amoz saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

¹This is the message that was revealed to Isaiah son of Amoz concerning Judah and Jerusalem:

¹⁴to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah:

²And he sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the scribe, and the leading priests, all wearing sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz

³to tell him, “This is what Hezekiah says: Today is a day of distress, rebuke, and disgrace; for children have come to the point of birth, but there is no strength to deliver them.

²²As for the rest of the acts of Uzziah, from beginning to end, they are recorded by the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz.

¹⁸Then they called for the king. And Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebnah the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder, went out to them.

⁵Yes, this is what the Lord says: “A cry of panic is heard—a cry of terror, not of peace.

⁶Ask now, and see: Can a male give birth? Why then do I see every man with his hands on his stomach like a woman in labor and every face turned pale?

⁹Shall I bring a baby to the point of birth and not deliver it?” says the Lord. “Or will I who deliver close the womb?” says your God.

¹⁵As it has been said: “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as you did in the rebellion.”

¹⁶For who were the ones who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt?

¹⁷As a woman with child about to give birth writhes and cries out in pain, so were we in Your presence, O Lord.

¹⁸We were with child; we writhed in pain; but we gave birth to wind. We have given no salvation to the earth, nor brought any life into the world.

¹³Labor pains come upon him, but he is an unwise son. When the time arrives, he fails to present himself at the opening of the womb.

⁸do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, in the day at Massah in the wilderness,

¹²Perhaps the Lord will see my affliction and repay me with good for the cursing I receive today.”

¹⁶Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power to prevail.

¹⁷Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.

²⁷Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the Israelites is like the sand of the sea, only the remnant will be saved.

³⁷This is what the Lord God says: Once again I will hear the plea of the house of Israel and do for them this: I will multiply their people like a flock.

¹²Now therefore give me this hill country that the Lord promised me on that day, for you yourself heard then that the Anakim were there, with great and fortified cities. Perhaps with the Lord’s help I will drive them out, as the Lord has spoken.”

¹⁸Remember how the enemy has mocked You, O Lord, how a foolish people has spurned Your name.

³⁵Who among all the gods of these lands has delivered his land from my hand? How then can the Lord deliver Jerusalem from my hand?”

¹⁷Nevertheless, the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rabsaris, and the Rabshakeh, along with a great army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They advanced up to Jerusalem and stationed themselves by the aqueduct of the upper pool, on the road to the Launderer’s Field.

⁶who replied, “Tell your master that this is what the Lord says: ‘Do not be afraid of the words you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me.

⁷Behold, I will put a spirit in him so that he will hear a rumor and return to his own land, where I will cause him to fall by the sword.’”

¹⁵And he said, “Listen, all you people of Judah and Jerusalem! Listen, King Jehoshaphat! This is what the Lord says: ‘Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army, for the battle does not belong to you, but to God.

¹When you go out to war against your enemies and see horses, chariots, and an army larger than yours, do not be afraid of them; for the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, is with you.

⁷Listen to Me, you who know what is right, you people with My law in your hearts: Do not fear the scorn of men; do not be broken by their insults.

⁶For the Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of chariots, horses, and a great army, so that they said to one another, “Look, the king of Israel must have hired the kings of the Hittites and Egyptians to attack us.”

¹⁶Therefore the Lord God of Hosts will send a wasting disease among Assyria’s stout warriors, and under his pomp will be kindled a fire like a burning flame.

¹⁷And the Light of Israel will become a fire, and its Holy One a flame. In a single day it will burn and devour Assyria’s thorns and thistles.

⁴but with righteousness He will judge the poor, and with equity He will decide for the lowly of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth and slay the wicked with the breath of His lips.

¹This is the vision of Obadiah: This is what the Lord God says about Edom—We have heard a message from the Lord; an envoy has been sent among the nations to say, “Rise up, and let us go to battle against her!”—

²¹and the Lord sent an angel who annihilated every mighty man of valor and every leader and commander in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he withdrew to his own land in disgrace. And when he entered the temple of his god, some of his own sons struck him down with the sword.

¹⁴He shot His arrows and scattered the foes; He hurled lightning and routed them.

¹⁵The channels of the sea appeared, and the foundations of the world were exposed, at Your rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of Your nostrils.

¹⁴So Hezekiah king of Judah sent word to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have done wrong; withdraw from me, and I will pay whatever you demand from me.” And the king of Assyria exacted from Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.

²⁹Then Joshua and all Israel with him moved on from Makkedah to Libnah and fought against Libnah.

⁸When the Rabshakeh heard that the king of Assyria had left Lachish, he withdrew and found the king fighting against Libnah.

⁹Now Sennacherib had been warned about Tirhakah king of Cush: “He has set out to fight against you.” On hearing this, Sennacherib sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,

¹⁵the king of Libnah, one; the king of Adullam, one;

¹¹the king of Jarmuth, one; the king of Lachish, one;

¹³Harness your chariot horses, O dweller of Lachish. You were the beginning of sin to the Daughter of Zion, for the transgressions of Israel were found in you.

²⁷Then a messenger came to Saul, saying, “Come quickly, for the Philistines have raided the land!”

¹⁷Nevertheless, the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rabsaris, and the Rabshakeh, along with a great army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They advanced up to Jerusalem and stationed themselves by the aqueduct of the upper pool, on the road to the Launderer’s Field.

⁹Now Sennacherib had been warned about Tirhakah king of Cush: “He has set out to fight against you.” On hearing this, Sennacherib sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,

⁵Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. No king of Judah was like him, either before him or after him.

²⁹This is what the king says: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you; he cannot deliver you from my hand.

³⁰Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the Lord when he says, ‘The Lord will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’

¹⁰“Give this message to Hezekiah king of Judah: ‘Do not let your God, in whom you trust, deceive you by saying that Jerusalem will not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.

¹¹Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the other countries, devoting them to destruction. Will you then be spared?

¹⁵So now, do not let Hezekiah deceive you, and do not let him mislead you like this. Do not believe him, for no god of any nation or kingdom has been able to deliver his people from my hand or from the hand of my fathers. How much less will your God deliver you from my hand!”

¹⁶And the servants of Sennacherib spoke further against the Lord God and against His servant Hezekiah.

⁸“Are not all my commanders kings?” he says.

⁹“Is not Calno like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad? Is not Samaria like Damascus?

¹³Do you not know what I and my fathers have done to all the peoples of the lands? Have the gods of these nations ever been able to deliver their land from my hand?

¹⁴Who among all the gods of these nations that my fathers devoted to destruction has been able to deliver his people from my hand? How then can your God deliver you from my hand?

¹⁷Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste these nations and their lands.

¹⁸They have cast their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods, but only wood and stone—the work of human hands.

⁵Then the king of Assyria invaded the whole land, marched up to Samaria, and besieged it for three years.

⁶In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and carried away the Israelites to Assyria, where he settled them in Halah, in Gozan by the Habor River, and in the cities of the Medes.

⁶In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and carried away the Israelites to Assyria, where he settled them in Halah, in Gozan by the Habor River, and in the cities of the Medes.

²³Haran, Canneh, and Eden traded with you, and so did the merchants of Sheba, Asshur, and Chilmad.

³¹And Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai the wife of Abram, and they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans for the land of Canaan. But when they arrived in Haran, they settled there.

¹²Did the gods of the nations destroyed by my fathers rescue those nations—the gods of Gozan, Haran, and Rezeph, and of the people of Eden in Telassar?

²⁶So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria (that is, Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria) to take the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh into exile. And he brought them to Halah, Habor, Hara, and the river of Gozan, where they remain to this day.

⁸And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, where He placed the man He had formed.

³⁴Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria from my hand?

²⁴Then the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim and settled them in the towns of Samaria to replace the Israelites. They took possession of Samaria and lived in its towns.

¹¹On that day the Lord will extend His hand a second time to recover the remnant of His people from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.

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

¹⁴So Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers, read it, and went up to the house of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord.

²¹So they went up and spied out the land from the Wilderness of Zin as far as Rehob, toward Lebo-hamath.

²³Concerning Damascus: “Hamath and Arpad are put to shame, for they have heard a bad report; they are agitated like the sea; their anxiety cannot be calmed.

¹⁴So Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers, read it, and went up to the house of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord.

¹A song of ascents. I lift up my eyes to You, the One enthroned in heaven.

²As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maidservant look to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes are on the Lord our God until He shows us mercy.

¹He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.

²I will say to the Lord, “You are my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”

⁵At the evening offering, I got up from my humiliation with my tunic and cloak torn, and I fell on my knees, spread out my hands to the Lord my God,

²⁸Yet regard the prayer and plea of Your servant, O Lord my God, so that You may hear the cry and the prayer that Your servant is praying before You today.

²⁹May Your eyes be open toward this temple night and day, toward the place of which You said, ‘My Name shall be there,’ so that You may hear the prayer that Your servant prays toward this place.

¹⁰How long, O God, will the enemy taunt You? Will the foe revile Your name forever?

¹¹Why do You withdraw Your strong right hand? Stretch it out to destroy them!

¹⁰But the Lord is the true God; He is the living God and eternal King. The earth quakes at His wrath, and the nations cannot endure His indignation.

¹¹Thus you are to tell them: “These gods, who have made neither the heavens nor the earth, will perish from this earth and from under these heavens.”

⁸Do not tremble or fear. Have I not told you and declared it long ago? You are My witnesses! Is there any God but Me? There is no other Rock; I know not one.”

¹⁵Then Naaman and all his attendants went back to the man of God, stood before him, and declared, “Now I know for sure that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel. So please accept a gift from your servant.”

²²And I will meet with you there above the mercy seat, between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the Testimony; I will speak with you about all that I command you regarding the Israelites.

³⁴But at the end of those days I, Nebuchadnezzar, looked up to heaven, and my sanity was restored to me. Then I praised the Most High, and I honored and glorified Him who lives forever: “For His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom endures from generation to generation.

³⁵All the peoples of the earth are counted as nothing, and He does as He pleases with the army of heaven and the peoples of the earth. There is no one who can restrain His hand or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’”

³So I turned my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and petition, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.

⁴And I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed, “O, Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant of loving devotion to those who love Him and keep His commandments,

¹⁷Incline Your ear, O Lord, and hear; open Your eyes, O Lord, and see. Listen to all the words that Sennacherib has sent to defy the living God.

²Incline Your ear to me; come quickly to my rescue. Be my rock of refuge, the stronghold of my deliverance.

⁴⁰Now, my God, may Your eyes be open and Your ears attentive to the prayer offered in this place.

⁴Perhaps the Lord your God will hear all the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to defy the living God, and He will rebuke him for the words that the Lord your God has heard. Therefore lift up a prayer for the remnant that still survives.”

²⁹May Your eyes be open toward this temple night and day, toward the place of which You said, ‘My Name shall be there,’ so that You may hear the prayer that Your servant prays toward this place.

¹⁸Incline Your ear, O my God, and hear; open Your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears Your name. For we are not presenting our petitions before You because of our righteous acts, but because of Your great compassion.

²⁷In fact, this is the very city where Herod and Pontius Pilate conspired with the Gentiles and the people of Israel against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed.

²⁴Then the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim and settled them in the towns of Samaria to replace the Israelites. They took possession of Samaria and lived in its towns.

¹⁷The Lord will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father a time unlike any since the day Ephraim separated from Judah—He will bring the king of Assyria.”

¹⁸On that day the Lord will whistle to the flies at the farthest streams of the Nile and to the bees in the land of Assyria.

¹⁵But know for certain that if you put me to death, you will bring innocent blood upon yourselves, upon this city, and upon its residents; for truly the Lord has sent me to speak all these words in your hearing.”

⁵⁹About an hour later, another man insisted, “Certainly this man was with Him, for he too is a Galilean.”

⁴⁷The king said to Daniel, “Your God is truly the God of gods and Lord of kings, the Revealer of Mysteries, since you were able to reveal this mystery.”

²⁹Therefore, being offspring of God, we should not think that the Divine Being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by man’s skill and imagination.

³For the customs of the peoples are worthless; they cut down a tree from the forest; it is shaped with a chisel by the hands of a craftsman.

⁴They adorn it with silver and gold and fasten it with hammer and nails, so that it will not totter.

⁹All makers of idols are nothing, and the things they treasure are worthless. Their witnesses fail to see or comprehend, so they are put to shame.

¹⁰Who fashions a god or casts an idol which profits him nothing?

¹⁴Every man is senseless and devoid of knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols. For his molten images are a fraud, and there is no breath in them.

¹⁵They are worthless, a work to be mocked. In the time of their punishment they will perish.

²¹There the Philistines abandoned their idols, and David and his men carried them away.

¹Bel crouches; Nebo cowers. Their idols weigh down beasts and cattle. The images you carry are burdensome, a load to the weary animal.

²The gods cower; they crouch together, unable to relieve the burden; but they themselves go into captivity.

¹⁸May they know that You alone, whose name is the Lord, are Most High over all the earth.

⁴³then may You hear from heaven, Your dwelling place, and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to You. Then all the peoples of the earth will know Your name and fear You, as do Your people Israel, and they will know that this house I have built is called by Your Name.

¹For the choirmaster. With stringed instruments. A Psalm. A song. May God be gracious to us and bless us, and cause His face to shine upon us, Selah

²that Your ways may be known on earth, Your salvation among all nations.

¹⁵For by this time I could have stretched out My hand and struck you and your people with a plague to wipe you off the earth.

¹⁶But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display My power to you, and that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth.

³⁴But at the end of those days I, Nebuchadnezzar, looked up to heaven, and my sanity was restored to me. Then I praised the Most High, and I honored and glorified Him who lives forever: “For His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom endures from generation to generation.

³⁵All the peoples of the earth are counted as nothing, and He does as He pleases with the army of heaven and the peoples of the earth. There is no one who can restrain His hand or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’”

⁴⁵But David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.

⁴⁶This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand. This day I will strike you down, cut off your head, and give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the creatures of the earth. Then the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel.

⁵“Go back and tell Hezekiah the leader of My people that this is what the Lord, the God of your father David, says: ‘I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. I will surely heal you. On the third day from now you will go up to the house of the Lord.

²⁰In response, King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz cried out to heaven in prayer,

²¹and the Lord sent an angel who annihilated every mighty man of valor and every leader and commander in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he withdrew to his own land in disgrace. And when he entered the temple of his god, some of his own sons struck him down with the sword.

³¹and said, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard, and your gifts to the poor have been remembered before God.

²⁴Even before they call, I will answer, and while they are still speaking, I will hear.

³Call to Me, and I will answer and show you great and unsearchable things you do not know.

¹⁴And this is the confidence that we have before Him: If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.

¹⁵And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we already possess what we have asked of Him.

¹³What can I say for you? To what can I compare you, O Daughter of Jerusalem? To what can I liken you, that I may console you, O Virgin Daughter of Zion? For your wound is as deep as the sea. Who can ever heal you?

⁴I could also speak like you if you were in my place; I could heap up words against you and shake my head at you.

³⁹And those who passed by heaped abuse on Him, shaking their heads

¹⁷You are to speak this word to them: ‘My eyes overflow with tears; day and night they do not cease, for the virgin daughter of my people has been shattered by a crushing blow, a severely grievous wound.

²⁵I am an object of scorn to my accusers; when they see me, they shake their heads.

¹⁵All who pass by clap their hands at you in scorn. They hiss and shake their heads at the Daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?”

²⁴Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes the straw, and as dry grass shrivels in the flame, so their roots will decay and their blossoms will blow away like dust; for they have rejected the instruction of the Lord of Hosts and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

²²So I will praise You with the harp for Your faithfulness, O my God; I will sing praise to You with the lyre, O Holy One of Israel.

⁴He will oppose and exalt himself above every so-called god or object of worship. So he will seat himself in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.

⁵For Israel and Judah have not been abandoned by their God, the Lord of Hosts, though their land is full of guilt before the Holy One of Israel.”

¹⁵For the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has said: “By repentance and rest you would be saved; your strength would lie in quiet confidence—but you were not willing.”

¹¹Get out of the way; turn off the road. Rid us of the Holy One of Israel!”

¹²Therefore this is what the Holy One of Israel says: “Because you have rejected this message, trusting in oppression and relying on deceit,

¹⁷Nevertheless, the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rabsaris, and the Rabshakeh, along with a great army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They advanced up to Jerusalem and stationed themselves by the aqueduct of the upper pool, on the road to the Launderer’s Field.

⁷Some trust in chariots and others in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.

¹⁸The splendor of its forests and orchards, both soul and body, it will completely destroy, as a sickness consumes a man.

¹⁷He also wrote letters mocking the Lord, the God of Israel, and saying against Him: “Just as the gods of the nations did not deliver their people from my hand, so the God of Hezekiah will not deliver His people from my hand.”

¹⁴My hand reached as into a nest to seize the wealth of the nations. Like one gathering abandoned eggs, I gathered all the earth. No wing fluttered, no beak opened or chirped.’”

³Look at Assyria, a cedar in Lebanon, with beautiful branches that shaded the forest. It towered on high; its top was among the clouds.

⁴The waters made it grow; the deep springs made it tall, directing their streams all around its base and sending their channels to all the trees of the field.

¹⁰Then Ben-hadad sent another message to Ahab: “May the gods deal with me, and ever so severely, if enough dust remains of Samaria for each of my men to have a handful.”

⁹The enemy declared, ‘I will pursue, I will overtake. I will divide the spoils; I will gorge myself on them. I will draw my sword; my hand will destroy them.’

⁶The canals will stink; the streams of Egypt will trickle and dry up; the reeds and rushes will wither.

¹³If he retreats to a city, all Israel will bring ropes to that city, and we will drag it down to the valley until not even a pebble can be found there.”

³⁰the king exclaimed, “Is this not Babylon the Great, which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?”

⁷I form the light and create the darkness; I bring prosperity and create calamity. I, the Lord, do all these things.

²⁶Have you not heard? Long ago I ordained it; in days of old I planned it. Now I have brought it to pass, that you should crush fortified cities into piles of rubble.

²⁷Therefore their inhabitants, devoid of power, are dismayed and ashamed. They are like plants in the field, tender green shoots, grass on the rooftops, scorched before it is grown.

⁵Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger; the staff in their hands is My wrath.

⁶I will send him against a godless nation; I will dispatch him against a people destined for My rage, to take spoils and seize plunder, and to trample them down like clay in the streets.

¹⁰I declare the end from the beginning, and from ancient times what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and all My good pleasure I will accomplish.’

¹¹I summon a bird of prey from the east, a man for My purpose from a far-off land. Truly I have spoken, and truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned it, and I will surely do it.

¹⁰Even the wrath of man shall praise You; with the survivors of wrath You will clothe Yourself.

²⁷In fact, this is the very city where Herod and Pontius Pilate conspired with the Gentiles and the people of Israel against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed.

²⁸They carried out what Your hand and will had decided beforehand would happen.

³⁶A sword is against her false prophets, and they will become fools. A sword is against her warriors, and they will be filled with terror.

³⁷A sword is against her horses and chariots and against all the foreigners in her midst, and they will become like women. A sword is against her treasuries, and they will be plundered.

²⁴For, “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall,

³⁰The warriors of Babylon have stopped fighting; they sit in their strongholds. Their strength is exhausted; they have become like women. Babylon’s homes have been set ablaze, the bars of her gates are broken.

⁴For behold, the kings assembled; they all advanced together.

⁵They saw and were astounded; they fled in terror.

⁶May they be like grass on the rooftops, which withers before it can grow,

⁷unable to fill the hands of the reaper, or the arms of the binder of sheaves.

⁶A voice says, “Cry out!” And I asked, “What should I cry out?” “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field.

⁷The grass withers and the flowers fall when the breath of the Lord blows on them; indeed, the people are grass.

²³“Am I only a God nearby,” declares the Lord, “and not a God far away?”

²⁴“Can a man hide in secret places where I cannot see him?” declares the Lord. “Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?” declares the Lord.

²⁸But I know your sitting down, your going out and coming in, and your raging against Me.

²⁹Because your rage and arrogance against Me have reached My ears, I will put My hook in your nose and My bit in your mouth; I will send you back the way you came.’

⁸The Lord will watch over your coming and going, both now and forevermore.

⁶You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.

¹For the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. O Lord, You have searched me and known me.

²You know when I sit and when I rise; You understand my thoughts from afar.

¹⁹You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.

⁴But I will put hooks in your jaws and cause the fish of your streams to cling to your scales. I will haul you up out of your rivers, and all the fish of your streams will cling to your scales.

³³He will go back the way he came, and he will not enter this city, declares the Lord.

⁴I will turn you around, put hooks in your jaws, and bring you out with all your army—your horses, your horsemen in full armor, and a great company armed with shields and bucklers, all brandishing their swords.

²The Lord God has sworn by His holiness: “Behold, the days are coming when you will be taken away with hooks, and your posterity with fishhooks.

²⁸His breath is like a rushing torrent that rises to the neck. He comes to sift the nations in a sieve of destruction; He bridles the jaws of the peoples to lead them astray.

²Can you put a cord through his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook?

²⁰Now you may wonder, ‘What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not sow or gather our produce?’

²¹But I will send My blessing upon you in the sixth year, so that the land will yield a crop sufficient for three years.

⁸Now Hezekiah had asked Isaiah, “What will be the sign that the Lord will heal me and that I will go up to the house of the Lord on the third day?”

⁹And Isaiah had replied, “This will be a sign to you from the Lord that He will do what He has promised: Would you like the shadow to go forward ten steps, or back ten steps?”

¹²“I will surely be with you,” God said, “and this will be the sign to you that I have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, all of you will worship God on this mountain.”

³⁰And this will be a sign to you, O Hezekiah: This year you will eat what grows on its own, and in the second year what springs from the same. But in the third year you will sow and reap; you will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

¹²And this will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”

¹¹“Ask for a sign from the Lord your God, whether from the depths of Sheol or the heights of heaven.”

¹²But Ahaz replied, “I will not ask; I will not test the Lord.”

⁶In the days to come, Jacob will take root. Israel will bud and blossom and fill the whole world with fruit.

⁴Perhaps the Lord your God will hear all the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to defy the living God, and He will rebuke him for the words that the Lord your God has heard. Therefore lift up a prayer for the remnant that still survives.”

²⁰On that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no longer depend on him who struck them, but they will truly rely on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel.

²¹A remnant will return—a remnant of Jacob—to the Mighty God.

²²So the Lord saved Hezekiah and the people of Jerusalem from the hands of King Sennacherib of Assyria and all others, and He gave them rest on every side.

²³Many brought offerings to Jerusalem for the Lord and valuable gifts for Hezekiah king of Judah, and from then on he was exalted in the eyes of all nations.

⁹Unless the Lord of Hosts had left us a few survivors, we would have become like Sodom, we would have resembled Gomorrah.

³¹And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah will again take root below and bear fruit above.

³²For a remnant will go forth from Jerusalem, and survivors from Mount Zion. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will accomplish this.

⁷Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from that time and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will accomplish this.

⁵In the same way, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace.

¹⁷His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for Your house will consume Me.”

²⁰On that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no longer depend on him who struck them, but they will truly rely on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel.

²⁷Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the Israelites is like the sand of the sea, only the remnant will be saved.

¹⁷He put on righteousness like a breastplate, and the helmet of salvation on His head; He put on garments of vengeance and wrapped Himself in a cloak of zeal.

⁷the Lord will surely bring against them the mighty floodwaters of the Euphrates—the king of Assyria and all his pomp. It will overflow its channels and overrun its banks.

⁸It will pour into Judah, swirling and sweeping over it, reaching up to the neck; its spreading streams will cover your entire land, O Immanuel!

¹⁵And Joab’s troops came and besieged Sheba in Abel-beth-maacah and built a siege ramp against the outer rampart of the city. As all the troops with Joab were battering the wall to topple it,

⁴³For the days will come upon you when your enemies will barricade you and surround you and hem you in on every side.

⁴⁴They will level you to the ground—you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.”

²⁴Therefore this is what the Lord God of Hosts says: “O My people who dwell in Zion, do not fear Assyria, who strikes you with a rod and lifts his staff against you as the Egyptians did.

²⁵For in just a little while My fury against you will subside, and My anger will turn to their destruction.”

²²In his right hand appears the portent for Jerusalem, where he is to set up battering rams, to call for the slaughter, to lift a battle cry, to direct the battering rams against the gates, to build a ramp, and to erect a siege wall.

³³So this is what the Lord says about the king of Assyria: ‘He will not enter this city or shoot an arrow into it. He will not come before it with a shield or build up a siege ramp against it.

³⁴He will go back the way he came, and he will not enter this city,’ declares the Lord.

²⁸Because your rage and arrogance against Me have reached My ears, I will put My hook in your nose and My bit in your mouth; I will send you back the way you came.’

³⁶So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there.

¹²Nevertheless, for the sake of your father David, I will not do it during your lifetime; I will tear it out of the hand of your son.

¹³Yet I will not tear the whole kingdom away from him. I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of My servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen.”

⁶I will add fifteen years to your life. And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city for My sake and for the sake of My servant David.’”

⁴Nevertheless, for the sake of David, the Lord his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem by raising up a son to succeed him and to make Jerusalem strong.

⁵Like birds hovering overhead, so the Lord of Hosts will protect Jerusalem. He will shield it and deliver it; He will pass over it and preserve it.”

²⁶then I would also reject the descendants of Jacob and of My servant David, so as not to take from his descendants rulers over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For I will restore them from captivity and will have compassion on them.”

²¹then My covenant may also be broken with David My servant and with My ministers the Levites who are priests, so that David will not have a son to reign on his throne.

²¹and the Lord sent an angel who annihilated every mighty man of valor and every leader and commander in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he withdrew to his own land in disgrace. And when he entered the temple of his god, some of his own sons struck him down with the sword.

²²So the Lord saved Hezekiah and the people of Jerusalem from the hands of King Sennacherib of Assyria and all others, and He gave them rest on every side.

¹⁶But when the angel stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the Lord relented from the calamity and said to the angel who was destroying the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand now!” At that time the angel of the Lord was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.

²⁹Now at midnight the Lord struck down every firstborn male in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on his throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner in the dungeon, as well as all the firstborn among the livestock.

³⁰During the night Pharaoh got up—he and all his officials and all the Egyptians—and there was loud wailing in Egypt; for there was no house without someone dead.

³⁶Then the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 men in the camp of the Assyrians. When the people got up the next morning, there were all the dead bodies!

²For you are fully aware that the Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.

³While people are saying, “Peace and security,” destruction will come upon them suddenly, like labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.

⁵The valiant lie plundered; they sleep their last sleep. No men of might could lift a hand.

⁶At Your rebuke, O God of Jacob, both horse and rider lie stunned.

²“Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before Me.”

⁷Behold, I will put a spirit in him so that he will hear a rumor and return to his own land, where I will cause him to fall by the sword.’”

³³He will go back the way he came, and he will not enter this city, declares the Lord.

²⁸Because your rage and arrogance against Me have reached My ears, I will put My hook in your nose and My bit in your mouth; I will send you back the way you came.’

⁴¹The men of Nineveh will stand at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now One greater than Jonah is here.

⁸Nineveh has been like a pool of water throughout her days, but now it is draining away. “Stop! Stop!” they cry, but no one turns back.

⁴On the seventeenth day of the seventh month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.

²they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of the families, saying, “Let us build with you because, like you, we seek your God and have been sacrificing to Him since the time of King Esar-haddon of Assyria, who brought us here.”

²⁷“Raise a banner in the land! Blow the ram’s horn among the nations! Prepare the nations against her. Summon the kingdoms against her—Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz. Appoint a captain against her; bring up horses like swarming locusts.

⁷Behold, I will put a spirit in him so that he will hear a rumor and return to his own land, where I will cause him to fall by the sword.’”

²¹and the Lord sent an angel who annihilated every mighty man of valor and every leader and commander in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he withdrew to his own land in disgrace. And when he entered the temple of his god, some of his own sons struck him down with the sword.

¹⁴Who among all the gods of these nations that my fathers devoted to destruction has been able to deliver his people from my hand? How then can your God deliver you from my hand?