The Divided Kingdom

Incline 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.

Truly, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste these nations and their lands.

They 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.

And 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.”

Then 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.

This 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.

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

Through 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.

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

Have 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.

Therefore 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.

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

Because 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.’

And 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.

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

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

So 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.

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

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

And 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!

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

One 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.

In 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.’”

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

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