2 Kings 19–21

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

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.

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.”

5So the servants of King Hezekiah went to Isaiah,

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.’”

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: “Look, he has set out to fight against you.” So Sennacherib again sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,

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?

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?

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.

15And Hezekiah prayed before the LORD: “O LORD, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You made the heavens and the earth.

16Incline Your ear, O LORD, and hear; open Your eyes, O LORD, and see. Listen to the words that Sennacherib has sent to defy the living God.

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.

19And now, O LORD our God, please save us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone, O LORD, are God.”

20Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah: “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I have heard your prayer concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria.

21This is the word that the LORD has spoken against him: ‘The Virgin Daughter of Zion despises you and mocks you; the Daughter of Jerusalem shakes her head behind you.

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.

24I have dug wells and drunk foreign waters. With the soles of my feet I have dried up all the streams of Egypt.”

25Have 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.

26Therefore 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.

27But I know your sitting down, your going out and coming in, and your raging against Me.

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.’

29And 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.

30And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah will again take root below and bear fruit above.

31For a remnant will go forth from Jerusalem, and survivors from Mount Zion. The zeal of the LORD of Hosts will accomplish this.

32So 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.

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

34I will defend this city and save it for My own sake and for the sake of My servant David.’”

35And that very night 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!

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

37One day, while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer put him to the sword and escaped to the land of Ararat. And his son Esar-haddon reigned in his place.

1In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came to him and said, “This is what the LORD says: ‘Put your house in order, for you are about to die; you will not recover.’”

2Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, saying,

3“Please, O LORD, remember how I have walked before You faithfully and with wholehearted devotion; I have done what is good in Your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

4Before Isaiah had left the middle courtyard, the word of the LORD came to him, saying,

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.

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.’”

7Then Isaiah said, “Prepare a poultice of figs.” So they brought it and applied it to the boil, and Hezekiah recovered.

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?”

10“It is easy for the shadow to lengthen ten steps,” answered Hezekiah, “but not for it to go back ten steps.”

11So Isaiah the prophet called out to the LORD, and He brought the shadow back the ten steps it had descended on the stairway of Ahaz.

12At that time Merodach-baladan son of Baladan king of Babylon sent letters and a gift to Hezekiah, for he had heard about Hezekiah’s illness.

13And Hezekiah received the envoys and showed them all that was in his treasure house—the silver, the gold, the spices, and the precious oil, as well as his armory—all that was found in his storehouses. There was nothing in his palace or in all his dominion that Hezekiah did not show them.

14Then the prophet Isaiah went to King Hezekiah and asked, “Where did those men come from, and what did they say to you?” “They came from a distant land,” Hezekiah replied, “from Babylon.”

15“What have they seen in your palace?” Isaiah asked. “They have seen everything in my palace,” answered Hezekiah. “There is nothing among my treasures that I did not show them.”

16Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the LORD:

17The time will surely come when everything in your palace and all that your fathers have stored up until this day will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the LORD.

18And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood, will be taken away to be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”

19But Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the LORD that you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “Will there not at least be peace and security in my lifetime?”

20As for the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, along with all his might and how he constructed the pool and the tunnel to bring water into the city, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

21And Hezekiah rested with his fathers, and his son Manasseh reigned in his place.

1Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem fifty-five years. His mother’s name was Hephzibah.

2And he did evil in the sight of the LORD by following the abominations of the nations that the LORD had driven out before the Israelites.

3For he rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed, and he raised up altars for Baal. He made an Asherah pole, as King Ahab of Israel had done, and he worshiped and served all the host of heaven.

4Manasseh also built altars in the house of the LORD, of which the LORD had said, “In Jerusalem I will put My Name.”

5In both courtyards of the house of the LORD, he built altars to all the host of heaven.

6He sacrificed his own son in the fire, practiced sorcery and divination, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did great evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking Him to anger.

7Manasseh even took the carved Asherah pole he had made and set it up in the temple, of which the LORD had said to David and his son Solomon, “In this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will establish My Name forever.

8I will never again cause the feet of the Israelites to wander from the land that I gave to their fathers, if only they are careful to do all I have commanded them—the whole Law that My servant Moses commanded them.”

9But the people did not listen and Manasseh led them astray, so that they did greater evil than the nations that the LORD had destroyed before the Israelites.

10And the LORD spoke through His servants the prophets, saying,

11“Since Manasseh king of Judah has committed all these abominations, acting more wickedly than the Amorites who preceded him, and with his idols has caused Judah to sin,

12this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Behold, I am bringing such calamity upon Jerusalem and Judah that the news will reverberate in the ears of all who hear it.

13I will stretch out over Jerusalem the measuring line used against Samaria and the plumb line used against the house of Ahab, and I will wipe out Jerusalem as one wipes out a bowl—wiping it and turning it upside down.

14So I will forsake the remnant of My inheritance and deliver them into the hands of their enemies. And they will become plunder and spoil to all their enemies,

15because they have done evil in My sight and have provoked Me to anger from the day their fathers came out of Egypt until this day.’”

16Moreover, Manasseh shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end, in addition to the sin that he had caused Judah to commit, doing evil in the sight of the LORD.

17As for the rest of the acts of Manasseh, along with all his accomplishments and the sin that he committed, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

18And Manasseh rested with his fathers and was buried in his palace garden, the garden of Uzza. And his son Amon reigned in his place.

19Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem two years. His mother’s name was Meshullemeth daughter of Haruz; she was from Jotbah.

20And he did evil in the sight of the LORD, as his father Manasseh had done.

21He walked in all the ways of his father, and he served and worshiped the idols his father had served.

22He abandoned the LORD, the God of his fathers, and did not walk in the way of the LORD.

23Then the servants of Amon conspired against him and killed the king in his palace.

24But the people of the land killed all those who had conspired against King Amon, and they made his son Josiah king in his place.

25As for the rest of the acts of Amon, along with his accomplishments, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

26And he was buried in his tomb in the garden of Uzza, and his son Josiah reigned in his place.