The Hebrew Prophets

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.’”

Then 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.

And the word of the LORD came to Isaiah, saying,

“Go and tell Hezekiah that this is what the LORD, the God of your father David, says: ‘I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Behold, I 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.

This will be a sign to you from the LORD that He will do what He has promised:

I will make the sun’s shadow that falls on the stairway of Ahaz go back ten steps.’” So the sunlight went back the ten steps it had descended.

This is a writing by Hezekiah king of Judah after his illness and recovery:

I said, “In the prime of my life I must go through the gates of Sheol and be deprived of the remainder of my years.”

I said, “I will never again see the LORD, even the LORD, in the land of the living; I will no longer look on mankind with those who dwell in this world.

My dwelling has been picked up and removed from me like a shepherd’s tent. I have rolled up my life like a weaver; He cuts me off from the loom; from day until night You make an end of me.

I composed myself until the morning. Like a lion He breaks all my bones; from day until night You make an end of me.

I chirp like a swallow or crane; I moan like a dove. My eyes grow weak as I look upward. O Lord, I am oppressed; be my security.”