Isaiah 37

37 ¹When King Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes, put on mourning clothes, and went into the house of our Father. ²He sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the scribe, and senior priests in sackcloth to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. ³They told him, "Hezekiah says: Today is a day of distress, reproof, and contempt. Children have come to birth, but no strength to deliver them. ⁴Perhaps your Father will hear the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria sent to mock the living Father, and will rebuke the words he heard. So lift up a prayer for the surviving remnant." ^a a v4 Rabshakeh is a title — the Assyrian king's chief military officer — not a personal name.

⁵When the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah,

⁶Isaiah told them, "Tell your master: our Father says: Don't fear the words you heard, with which the king of Assyria's servants insulted me. ⁷Look, I will put a spirit in him, so he hears a report, returns to his own land, and there I will make him fall by the sword."

⁸The Rabshakeh returned and found the Assyrian king fighting Libnah, having heard the king had left Lachish. ⁹The king heard about Tirhakah king of Cush: "He has come out to fight you." Hearing this, he sent messengers to Hezekiah: ¹⁰"Tell Hezekiah king of Judah: Don't let the God you trust deceive you, saying, 'Jerusalem won't fall to Assyria's king.' ¹¹You have heard what the kings of Assyria did to all lands, destroying them completely. And you—will you be rescued? ¹²Did the nations' gods rescue those my fathers destroyed: Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and Eden's people in Telassar? ¹³Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?"

Spread out Before the Father

¹⁴Hezekiah took the letter from the messengers, read it, went up to our Father's house, and spread it out before our Father. ¹⁵And Hezekiah prayed to our Father, saying: ¹⁶"Father of heaven's armies, the Father of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim—you alone are our Father over all earth's kingdoms; you made the heavens and the earth. ¹⁷Bend down, our Father, and hear; open your eyes, our Father, and see; hear all Sennacherib's words sent to mock the living Father. ¹⁸True, our Father, the kings of Assyria have destroyed all the nations and their lands, ¹⁹and threw their gods into the fire—not gods but work of human hands, wood and stone; so they destroyed them. ²⁰Now, our Father, save us from his hand, so all earth's kingdoms may know you alone are our Father."

The Father Answers

²¹Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah: This is what the Father of Israel says: Because you prayed to me about Sennacherib king of Assyria,

²²this is the word that our Father has spoken against him: "She despises you, she scorns you—the virgin daughter of Zion; behind you she shakes her head—the daughter of Jerusalem. ²³Whom have you mocked and reviled? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes in pride? Against the Holy One of Israel! ²⁴By your servants you have mocked the Sovereign Father, and you have said, 'With my many chariots I have gone up to the heights of the mountains, to the far reaches of Lebanon. I cut down its tallest cedars, its choicest cypresses; I came to its remotest height, its densest forest. ²⁵I dug wells and drank water; with the sole of my foot I dried up all the streams of Egypt.' ²⁶Have you not heard? Long ago I did it; from days of old I planned it. Now I have made it happen, that you should turn fortified cities into heaps of ruins. ²⁷Their inhabitants, stripped of their strength, were dismayed and put to shame; they were like plants of the field, like tender grass, like grass on the rooftops, withered before it can grow. ²⁸But I know when you sit down, when you go out, and when you come in, and when you rage against me. ²⁹Because you rage against me, and your arrogance has reached my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bridle in your mouth, and I will turn you back by the way you came.

³⁰"This is your sign: this year you'll eat what grows on its own, the second year what springs from that, the third year sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit. ³¹And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah will again take root downward and bear fruit upward. ³²For out of Jerusalem will go a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the Father of heaven's armies will accomplish this.

³³So our Father says about Assyria's king: He will not enter this city or shoot an arrow here, confront it with a shield, or build a siege ramp against it. ³⁴He will return the way he came; he will not come into this city, declares our Father. ³⁵For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of David my servant."

³⁶Then our Father's messenger went out and struck down 185,000 in the Assyrian camp; when people rose early in the morning, there were dead bodies everywhere. ³⁷So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and went home, and he stayed at Nineveh. ³⁸As he worshiped in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him with the sword and fled to Ararat. His son Esarhaddon ruled in his place.