2Ki 18:13-20, 2Ki 19 | ESV | STEP | In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah , Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.

13 ^aIn the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them. 14 And Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have done wrong; withdraw from me. Whatever you impose on me I will bear.” ^bAnd the king of Assyria required of Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents ^{▼▼A talent was about 75 pounds or 34 kilograms} of silver and thirty talents of gold. 15 And Hezekiah ^dgave him all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king’s house. 16 At that time Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord and from the doorposts that Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria. 17 And the king of Assyria sent the ^eTartan, the Rab-saris, and the Rabshakeh with a great army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. When they arrived, they came and stood by ^fthe conduit of the upper pool, which is on the highway to the Washer’s Field. 18 And when they called for the king, there came out to them ^gEliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and ^hShebnah the secretary, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder.

19 And the Rabshakeh said to them, “Say to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: On what do you rest this trust of yours? 20 Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? In whom do you now trust, that you have rebelled against me?

2 Kings 19

Isaiah Reassures Hezekiah

1 ⁱAs soon as King Hezekiah heard it, ^jhe tore his clothes and ^kcovered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the Lord. 2 And he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and the senior priests, ^lcovered with sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz. 3 They said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah, This day is a day of distress, of rebuke, and of disgrace; children have come to the point of birth, and there is no strength to bring them forth. 4 ^mIt may be that the Lord your God heard all the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent ⁿto mock the living God, and will rebuke the words that the Lord your God has heard; therefore lift up your prayer for ^othe remnant that is left.” 5 When the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah, 6 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 ^pthe servants of the king of Assyria have ^qreviled me. 7 Behold, I will put a spirit in him, so that ^rhe shall hear a rumor and return to his own land, and I will make him ^sfall by the sword in his own land.’”

Sennacherib Defies the Lord

8 The Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria fighting against ^tLibnah, for he heard that the king had left ^uLachish. 9 ^vNow the king heard concerning Tirhakah king of Cush, “Behold, he has set out to fight against you.” So he sent messengers again to Hezekiah, saying, 10 “Thus shall you speak to Hezekiah king of Judah: ‘Do not let your God ^win whom you trust deceive you by promising that ^xJerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. 11 Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, devoting them to destruction. And shall you be delivered? 12 ^yHave the gods of the nations delivered them, the nations that my fathers destroyed, ^zGozan, ^aaHaran, Rezeph, and the people of ^abEden who were in Telassar? 13 ^acWhere is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, the king of Hena, or the king of Ivvah?’”

Hezekiah’s Prayer

14 Hezekiah received ^adthe letter from the hand of the messengers and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord. 15 And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord and said: “O Lord, the God of Israel, ^aeenthroned above the cherubim, ^afyou are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. 16 ^agIncline your ear, O Lord, and hear; ^ahopen your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent ^aito mock the living God. 17 Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands 18 and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, ^ajbut the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed. 19 So now, O Lord our God, save us, please, from his hand, ^akthat all the kingdoms of the earth may know that ^alyou, O Lord, are God alone.”

Isaiah Prophesies Sennacherib’s Fall

20 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Your prayer to me about Sennacherib king of Assyria ^amI have heard. 21 This is the word that the Lord has spoken concerning him:

“She despises you, she scorns you—
^anthe virgin daughter of Zion;
she ^aowags her head behind you—
the daughter of Jerusalem.
22 “Whom have you ^apmocked and ^aqreviled?
Against whom have you raised your voice
and lifted your eyes to the heights?
Against ^arthe Holy One of Israel!
23 ^asBy your messengers you have mocked the Lord,
and you have said, ^at‘With my many chariots
I have gone up the heights of the mountains,
to the far recesses of ^auLebanon;
I felled its tallest cedars,
its choicest cypresses;
I entered its farthest lodging place,
its most ^avfruitful forest.
24 I dug wells
and drank foreign waters,
and I dried up with the sole of my foot
all the streams ^awof Egypt.’
25 “Have you not heard
that ^axI determined it long ago?
I planned from days of old
what ^aynow I bring to pass,
that you should turn fortified cities
into heaps of ruins,
26 while their inhabitants, shorn of strength,
are dismayed and confounded,
and have become ^azlike plants of the field
and like tender grass,
like grass on the housetops,
blighted before it is grown.
27 “But I know your sitting down
^baand your going out and coming in,
and your raging against me.
28 Because you have raged against me
and your complacency has come into my ears,
I will ^bbput my hook in your nose
and my bit in your mouth,
and ^bcI will turn you back on the way
by which you came.
29 “And this shall be ^bdthe 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. 30 ^beAnd the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward. 31 For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and out of Mount Zion ^bfa band of survivors. ^bgThe zeal of the Lord will do this.

32 “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 ^bhcast up a siege mound against it. 33 ^biBy the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, declares the Lord. 34 ^bjFor I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake ^bkand for the sake of my servant David.”

35 And that night ^blthe angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. 36 Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went home and lived at ^bmNineveh. 37 And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, ^bnAdrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, struck him down with the sword and escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.