Isaiah 36

¹After all these acts of faithfulness, Sennacherib king of Assyria came and invaded Judah. He laid siege to the fortified cities, intending to conquer them for himself.

¹³In the fourteenth year of Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked and captured all the fortified cities of Judah.

²⁸Assyria has entered Aiath and passed through Migron, storing their supplies at Michmash.

²⁹They have crossed at the ford: “We will spend the night at Geba.” Ramah trembles; Gibeah of Saul flees.

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.

⁷Your land is desolate; your cities are burned with fire. Foreigners devour your fields before you—a desolation demolished by strangers.

⁸And the Daughter of Zion is abandoned like a shelter in a vineyard, like a shack in a cucumber field, like a city besieged.

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.”

⁹Later, as Sennacherib king of Assyria and all his forces besieged Lachish, he sent his servants to Jerusalem with a message for King Hezekiah of Judah and all the people of Judah who were in Jerusalem:

¹⁰“This is what Sennacherib king of Assyria says: What is the basis of your confidence, that you remain in Jerusalem under siege?

³Then the Lord said to Isaiah, “Go out with your son Shear-jashub to meet Ahaz at the end of the aqueduct that feeds the upper pool, on the road to the Launderer’s Field,

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.

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.

⁹You saw that there were many breaches in the walls of the City of David. You collected water from the lower pool.

¹⁰You counted the houses of Jerusalem and tore them down to strengthen the wall.

²⁴Adoram was in charge of the forced labor; Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was the recorder;

²⁵Sheva was the scribe; Zadok and Abiathar were priests;

¹⁶Joab son of Zeruiah was over the army; Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was the recorder;

¹⁷Zadok son of Ahitub and Ahimelech son of Abiathar were priests; Seraiah was the scribe;

¹⁵This is what the Lord God of Hosts says: “Go, say to Shebna, the steward in charge of the palace:

¹⁶What are you doing here, and who authorized you to carve out a tomb for yourself here—to chisel your tomb in the height and cut your resting place in the rock?

¹⁹The Rabshakeh said to them, “Tell Hezekiah that this is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: What is the basis of this confidence of yours?

²⁰You claim to have a strategy and strength for war, but these are empty words. In whom are you now trusting, that you have rebelled against me?

¹⁰Like the crushing of my bones, my enemies taunt me, while they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”

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?

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?

³My tears have been my food both day and night, while men ask me all day long, “Where is your God?”

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.

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

⁷And the Lord was with Hezekiah, and he prospered wherever he went. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and refused to serve him.

¹⁵But this king rebelled against Babylon by sending his envoys to Egypt to ask for horses and a large army. Will he flourish? Will the one who does such things escape? Can he break a covenant and yet escape?’

³⁰There is no wisdom, no understanding, no counsel that can prevail against the Lord.

³¹A horse is prepared for the day of battle, but victory is of the Lord.

⁵A wise man is strong, and a man of knowledge enhances his strength.

⁶Only with sound guidance should you wage war, and victory lies in a multitude of counselors.

³For because of the anger of the Lord, all this happened in Jerusalem and Judah, until He finally banished them from His presence. And Zedekiah also rebelled against the king of Babylon.

¹⁹But when Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official, and Geshem the Arab heard about this, they mocked us and ridiculed us, saying, “What is this you are doing? Are you rebelling against the king?”

²⁰So I answered them and said, “The God of heaven is the One who will grant us success. We, His servants, will start rebuilding, but you have no portion, right, or claim in Jerusalem.”

⁶Then all the people of Egypt will know that I am the Lord. For you were only a staff of reeds to the house of Israel.

⁷When Israel took hold of you with their hands, you splintered, tearing all their shoulders; when they leaned on you, you broke, and their backs were wrenched.

²¹Look now, you are trusting in Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff that will pierce the hand of anyone who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him.

¹“Woe to the rebellious children,” declares the Lord, “to those who carry out a plan that is not Mine, who form an alliance, but against My will, heaping up sin upon sin.

²They set out to go down to Egypt without asking My advice, to seek shelter under Pharaoh’s protection and take refuge in Egypt’s shade.

³But the Egyptians are men, not God; their horses are flesh, not spirit. When the Lord stretches out His hand, the helper will stumble, and the one he helps will fall; both will perish together.

⁵Pharaoh’s army had left Egypt, and when the Chaldeans who were besieging Jerusalem heard the report, they withdrew from Jerusalem.

⁶Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet:

⁴But the king of Assyria discovered that Hoshea had conspired to send envoys to King So of Egypt, and that he had not paid tribute to the king of Assyria as in previous years. Therefore the king of Assyria arrested Hoshea and put him in prison.

⁴He removed the high places, shattered the sacred pillars, and cut down the Asherah poles. He also demolished the bronze snake called Nehushtan that Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had burned incense to it.

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

¹⁰Like the crushing of my bones, my enemies taunt me, while they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”

¹¹Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why the unease within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God.

¹⁵The spiritual man judges all things, but he himself is not subject to anyone’s judgment.

⁵Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why the unease within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him for the salvation of His presence.

¹³Be careful not to offer your burnt offerings in just any place you see;

¹⁴you must offer them only in the place the Lord will choose in one of your tribal territories, and there you shall do all that I command you.

²⁰And because they cried out to God in battle, they were helped against their enemies, and the Hagrites and all their allies were delivered into their hands. Because they put their trust in God, He answered their prayers.

⁴⁰And David took his staff in his hand, selected five smooth stones from the brook, and put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag. And with his sling in hand, he approached the Philistine.

⁴¹Now the Philistine came closer and closer to David, with his shield-bearer before him.

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

⁸They collapse and fall, but we rise up and stand firm.

²³Now, therefore, make a bargain with my master, the king of Assyria. I will give you two thousand horses—if you can put riders on them!

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.”

²before his associates and the army of Samaria, saying, “What are these feeble Jews doing? Can they restore the wall by themselves? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they complete it in a day? Can they bring these burnt stones back to life from the mounds of rubble?”

³Then Tobiah the Ammonite, who was beside him, said, “If even a fox were to climb up on what they are building, it would break down their wall of stones!”

¹⁴He took all the gold and silver and all the articles found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the royal palace, as well as some hostages. Then he returned to Samaria.

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

³But the Egyptians are men, not God; their horses are flesh, not spirit. When the Lord stretches out His hand, the helper will stumble, and the one he helps will fall; both will perish together.

⁶Look now, you are trusting in Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff that will pierce the hand of anyone who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him.

¹⁶“No,” you say, “we will flee on horses.” Therefore you will flee! “We will ride swift horses,” but your pursuers will be faster.

¹⁷A thousand will flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you will all flee, until you are left alone like a pole on a mountaintop, like a banner on a hill.

⁷Egypt’s help is futile and empty; therefore I have called her Rahab Who Sits Still.

²⁴For how can you repel a single officer among the least of my master’s servants when you depend on Egypt for chariots and horsemen?

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.

²⁵So now, was it apart from the Lord that I have come up against this place to destroy it? The Lord Himself said to me, ‘Go up against this land and destroy it.’”

¹⁸Then the prophet replied, “I too am a prophet like you, and an angel spoke to me by the word of the Lord, saying, ‘Bring him back with you to your house, so that he may eat bread and drink water.’” The old prophet was lying to him,

²¹But Neco sent messengers to him, saying, “What is the issue between you and me, O king of Judah? I have not come against you today, but I am fighting another dynasty, and God has told me to hurry. So stop opposing God, who is with me, or He will destroy you!”

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

⁶If a ram’s horn sounds in a city, do the people not tremble? If calamity comes to a city, has not the Lord caused it?

⁷And in the days of Artaxerxes king of Persia, Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of his associates wrote a letter to Artaxerxes. It was written in Aramaic and then translated.

⁴Then the astrologers answered the king in Aramaic, “O king, may you live forever! Tell your servants the dream, and we will give the interpretation.”

²⁶Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, along with Shebnah and Joah, said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it. Do not speak with us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people on the wall.”

²⁷But the Rabshakeh replied, “Has my master sent me to speak these words only to you and your master, and not to the men sitting on the wall, who are destined with you to eat their own dung and drink their own urine?”

²⁷But the Rabshakeh replied, “Has my master sent me to speak these words only to you and your master, and not to the men sitting on the wall, who are destined with you to eat their own dung and drink their own urine?”

²⁹You will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters.

⁵³Then you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters whom the Lord your God has given you, in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you.

⁵⁴The most gentle and refined man among you will begrudge his brother, the wife he embraces, and the rest of his children who have survived,

²⁵So there was a great famine in Samaria. Indeed, they besieged the city so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a quarter cab of dove’s dung sold for five shekels of silver.

²⁶As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, “Help me, my lord the king!”

²⁰They carve out what is on the right, but they are still hungry; they eat what is on the left, but they are still not satisfied. Each one devours the flesh of his own offspring.

¹⁶Then He told me, “Son of man, I am going to cut off the supply of food in Jerusalem. They will anxiously eat bread rationed by weight, and in despair they will drink water by measure.

¹⁸Then the Assyrians called out loudly in Hebrew to the people of Jerusalem who were on the wall, to frighten and terrify them in order to capture the city.

⁴The Rabshakeh said to them, “Tell Hezekiah that this is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: What is the basis of this confidence of yours?

⁸They mock and speak with malice; with arrogance they threaten oppression.

⁹They set their mouths against the heavens, and their tongues strut across the earth.

⁶I have said, ‘You are gods; you are all sons of the Most High.’

⁷But like mortals you will die, and like rulers you will fall.”

¹⁰They have closed their callous hearts; their mouths speak with arrogance.

¹¹They have tracked us down, and now surround us; their eyes are set to cast us to the ground,

³⁷Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, for all His works are true and all His ways are just. And He is able to humble those who walk in pride.

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.

⁵The beast was given a mouth to speak arrogant and blasphemous words, and authority to act for 42 months.

⁶And the beast opened its mouth to speak blasphemies against God and to slander His name and His tabernacle—those who dwell in heaven.

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?

²²Whom have you taunted and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes in pride? Against the Holy One of Israel!

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?

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?

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.

⁴³He trusts in God. Let God deliver Him now if He wants Him. For He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”

⁷All who see me mock me; they sneer and shake their heads:

⁸“He trusts in the Lord, let the Lord deliver him; let the Lord rescue him, since He delights in him.”

⁹Do not discard me in my old age; do not forsake me when my strength fails.

¹⁰For my enemies speak against me, and those who lie in wait for my life conspire,

²³Whom have you taunted and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes in pride? Against the Holy One of Israel!

²⁴Through your servants you have taunted the Lord, and you have said: “With my many chariots I have ascended to the heights of the mountains, to the remote peaks of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars, the finest of its cypresses. I have reached its farthest heights, the densest of its forests.

⁷But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the Lord our God,’ is He not the One whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You must worship before this altar’?

¹⁰On that day, declares the Lord of Hosts, you will each invite your neighbor to sit under your own vine and fig tree.’”

²⁵Throughout the days of Solomon, Judah and Israel dwelt securely from Dan to Beersheba, each man under his own vine and his own fig tree.

⁴And each man will sit under his own vine and under his own fig tree, with no one to frighten him. For the mouth of the Lord of Hosts has spoken.

⁵So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to visit you beforehand and make arrangements for the generous gift you had promised. This way, your gift will be prepared generously and not begrudgingly.

²⁷Now let this gift your servant has brought to my lord be given to the young men who follow you.

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.”

³²until I come and take you away to a land like your own—a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey—so that you may live and not die. But do not listen to Hezekiah, for he misleads you when he says, ‘The Lord will deliver us.’

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.

⁷All this happened because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They had worshiped other gods

¹¹And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to the city while his servants were besieging it.

⁹In the fourth year of Hezekiah’s reign, which was the seventh year of the reign of Hoshea son of Elah over Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria marched against Samaria and besieged it.

¹⁰And at the end of three years, the Assyrians captured it. So Samaria was captured in the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel.

⁸I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

⁷For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks and fountains and springs that flow through the valleys and hills;

⁸a land of wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive oil and honey;

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.

¹⁸Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all these countries and their lands.

¹⁵Do 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.’

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.”

⁷But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the Lord our God,’ is He not the One whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You must worship before this altar’?

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?

²Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?”

³Our God is in heaven; He does as He pleases.

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

¹⁰As my hand seized the idolatrous kingdoms whose images surpassed those of Jerusalem and Samaria,

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.

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.

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.

⁹When King Toi of Hamath heard that David had defeated the entire army of Hadadezer,

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?

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?

¹⁹They spoke against the God of Jerusalem as they had spoken against the gods of the peoples of the earth—the work of human hands.

²¹You have done these things, and I kept silent; you thought I was just like you. But now I rebuke you and accuse you to your face.

¹⁵Now when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes, and all kinds of music, if you are ready to fall down and worship the statue I have made, very good. But if you refuse to worship, you will be thrown at once into the blazing fiery furnace. Then what god will be able to deliver you from my hands?”

²²Whom have you taunted and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes in pride? Against the Holy One of Israel!

²³Through your servants you have taunted the Lord, and you have said: “With my many chariots I have ascended to the heights of the mountains, to the remote peaks of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars, the finest of its cypresses. I have reached its farthest outposts, the densest of its forests.

²³Whom have you taunted and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes in pride? Against the Holy One of Israel!

²⁴Through your servants you have taunted the Lord, and you have said: “With my many chariots I have ascended to the heights of the mountains, to the remote peaks of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars, the finest of its cypresses. I have reached its farthest heights, the densest of its forests.

¹⁸Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all these countries and their lands.

¹⁹They 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.

⁴Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be like him.

⁶Do not give dogs what is holy; do not throw your pearls before swine. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces.

¹For the choirmaster. For Jeduthun. A Psalm of David. I said, “I will watch my ways so that I will not sin with my tongue; I will guard my mouth with a muzzle as long as the wicked are present.”

²⁶Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, along with Shebnah and Joah, said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it. Do not speak with us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people on the wall.”

¹³But like a deaf man, I do not hear; and like a mute man, I do not open my mouth.

¹⁴I am like a man who cannot hear, whose mouth offers no reply.

¹³Therefore, the prudent keep silent in such times, for the days are evil.

³Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder, went out to him.

⁷Behold, their valiant ones cry aloud in the streets; the envoys of peace weep bitterly.

⁶⁵At this, the high priest tore his clothes and declared, “He has blasphemed! Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you have heard the blasphemy.

³When I heard this report, I tore my tunic and cloak, pulled out some hair from my head and beard, and sat down in horror.

⁷When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and asked, “Am I God, killing and giving life, that this man expects me to cure a leper? Surely you can see that he is seeking a quarrel with me!”

¹¹Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it. Do not speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people on the wall.”