The Hebrew Prophets

And they sayd vnto him, Thus saith Hezekiah, This day is a day of tribulation and of rebuke and blasphemie: for the children are come to the birth, and there is no strength to bring foorth.

If so be the Lord thy God hath heard the wordes of Rabshakeh, whom the King of Asshur his master hath sent to raile on the liuing God, and to reproch him with wordes which the Lord thy God hath heard, then lift thou vp thy prayer for the remnant that are left.

So the seruants of the King Hezekiah came to Isaiah.

And Isaiah sayde vnto them, Thus say vnto your master, Thus saith the Lord, Be not afrayd of the wordes that thou hast heard, wherewith the seruants of the king of Asshur haue blasphemed me.

Beholde, I wil send a blast vpon him, and he shall heare a noyse, and returne to his owne land, and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his owne land.

So Rabshakeh returned, and found the King of Asshur fighting against Libnah: for he had heard that he was departed from Lachish.

He heard also men say of Tirhakah, King of Ethiopia, Beholde, he is come out to fight against thee: and when he heard it, he sent other messengers to Hezekiah, saying,

Thus shall ye speake to Hezekiah King of Iudah, saying, Let not thy God deceiue thee, in whom thou trustest, saying, Ierusalem shall not be giuen into the hand of the King of Asshur.

Beholde, thou hast heard what the Kings of Asshur haue done to all lands in destroying them, and shalt thou be deliuered?

Haue the gods of the nations deliuered them, which my fathers haue destroyed? as Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden, which were at Telassar?

Where is the King of Hamath, and the King of Arpad, and the King of the citie of Sepharuaim, Hena and Iuah?

So Hezekiah receiued the letter of the hand of the messengers and read it, and he went vp into the House of the Lord, and Hezekiah spread it before the Lord.

And Hezekiah prayed vnto the Lord, saying,

O Lord of hostes, God of Israel, which dwellest betweene the Cherubims, thou art very God alone ouer all the kingdomes of the earth: thou hast made the heauen and the earth.

Encline thine eare, O Lord, and heare: open thine eyes, O Lord, and see, and heare all the wordes of Saneherib, who hath sent to blaspheme the liuing God.

Trueth it is, O Lord, that the Kings of Asshur haue destroyed all lands, and their countrey,

And haue cast their gods in ye fire: for they were no gods, but the worke of mans hands, euen wood or stone: therefore they destroyed them.

Nowe therefore, O Lord our God, saue thou vs out of his hand, that all the kingdomes of the earth may knowe, that thou onely art the Lord.

Then Isaiah the sonne of Amoz sent vnto Hezekiah, saying, Thus sayth the Lord God of Israel, Because thou hast prayed vnto me, concerning Saneherib king of Asshur,

This is the worde that the Lord hath spoken against him, the virgine, the daughter of Zion, hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorne: the daughter of Ierusalem, hath shaken her head at thee.

Whome hast thou railed on and blasphemed? and against whome hast thou exalted thy voyce, and lifted vp thine eyes on hie? euen against the holy one of Israel.

By thy seruants hast thou railed on the Lord, and sayd, By the multitude of my charets I am come vp to the top of the mountaines to the sides of Lebanon, and will cut downe the hie cedars thereof, and the faire firre trees thereof, and I will goe vp to the heightes of his top and to the forest of his fruitfull places.

I haue digged and drunke the waters, and with the plant of my feete haue I dryed all the riuers closed in.

Hast thou not heard howe I haue of olde time made it, and haue formed it long ago? and should I now bring it, that it should be destroyed, and layde on ruinous heapes, as cities defensed?

Whose inhabitants haue small power, and are afrayd and confounded: they are like the grasse of the field and greene herbe, or grasse on the house tops, or corne blassed afore it be growen.