Isaiah:37

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* When King Hezeki 'ah heard it , he rent his clothes , and covered himself with sackcloth , and went into the house of the LORD . * And he sent Eli 'akim , who was over the household , and Shebna the secretary , and the senior priests , clothed with sackcloth , to the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz . * They said to him , "Thus says Hezeki 'ah , `This day is a day of distress , of rebuke , and of disgrace ; children have come to the birth , and there is no strength to bring them forth . * It may be that the LORD your God heard the words of the Rab 'shakeh , whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to mock the living God , and will rebuke the words which the LORD your God has heard ; therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left .'" * When the servants of King Hezeki 'ah came to Isaiah , * Isaiah said to them , "Say to your master , `Thus says the LORD : Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard , with which the servants of the king of Assyria have reviled me . * Behold , I will put a spirit in him , so that he shall hear a rumor , and return to his own land ; and I will make him fall by the sword in his own land .'" * The Rab 'shakeh returned , and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah ; for he had heard that the king had left Lachish . * Now the king heard concerning Tirha 'kah king of Ethiopia , "He has set out to fight against you ." And when he heard it , he sent messengers to Hezeki 'ah , saying , * "Thus shall you speak to Hezeki 'ah king of Judah : `Do not let your God on whom you rely deceive you by promising that Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria . * Behold , you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands , destroying them utterly . And shall you be delivered ? * Have the gods of the nations delivered them , the nations which my fathers destroyed , Gozan , Haran , Rezeph , and the people of Eden who were in Tel-assar ? * Where is the king of Hamath , the king of Arpad , the king of the city of Sepharva 'im , the king of Hena , or the king of Ivvah ?'" * Hezeki 'ah received the letter from the hand of the messengers , and read it ; and Hezeki 'ah went up to the house of the LORD , and spread it before the LORD . * And Hezeki 'ah prayed to the LORD : * "O LORD of hosts , God of Israel , who art enthroned above the cherubim , thou art the God , thou alone , of all the kingdoms of the earth ; thou hast made heaven and earth . * Incline thy ear , O LORD , and hear ; open thy eyes , O LORD , and see ; and hear all the words of Sennach 'erib , which he has sent to mock the living God . * Of a truth , O LORD , the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their lands , * and have cast their gods into the fire ; for they were no gods , but the work of men 's hands , wood and stone ; therefore they were destroyed . * So now , O LORD our God , save us from his hand , that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou alone art the LORD ." * Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezeki 'ah , saying , "Thus says the LORD , the God of Israel : Because you have prayed to me concerning Sennach 'erib king of Assyria , * this is the word that the LORD has spoken concerning him : `She despises you , she scorns you -- the virgin daughter of Zion ; she wags her head behind you -- the daughter of Jerusalem . * `Whom have you mocked and reviled ? Against whom have you raised your voice and haughtily lifted your eyes ? Against the Holy One of Israel ! * By your servants you have mocked the Lord , and you have said , With my many chariots I have gone up the heights of the mountains , to the far recesses of Lebanon ; I felled its tallest cedars , its choicest cypresses ; I came to its remotest height , its densest forest . * I dug wells and drank waters , and I dried up with the sole of my foot all the streams of Egypt . * `Have you not heard that I determined it long ago ? I planned from days of old what now I bring to pass , that you should make fortified cities crash into heaps of ruins , * while their inhabitants , shorn of strength , are dismayed and confounded , and have become like plants of the field and like tender grass , like grass on the housetops , blighted before it is grown . * `I know your sitting down and your going out and coming in , and your raging against me . * Because you have raged against me and your arrogance has come to my ears , I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth , and I will turn you back on the way by which you came .' * "And this shall be the sign for you : this year eat what grows of itself , and in the second year what springs of the same ; then in the third year sow and reap , and plant vineyards , and eat their fruit . * And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward , and bear fruit upward ; * for out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant , and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors . The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this . * "Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria : He shall not come into this city , or shoot an arrow there , or come before it with a shield , or cast up a siege mound against it . * By the way that he came , by the same he shall return , and he shall not come into this city , says the LORD . * For I will defend this city to save it , for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David ." * And the angel of the LORD went forth , and slew a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians ; and when men arose early in the morning , behold , these were all dead bodies . * Then Sennach 'erib king of Assyria departed , and went home and dwelt at Nin 'eveh . * And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god , Adram 'melech and Share 'zer , his sons , slew him with the sword , and escaped into the land of Ar 'arat . And E 'sar-had 'don his son reigned in his stead .

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