Assyria

Rabshakeh said to them, “Say now to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, “What confidence is this in which you trust?

Now therefore, please give pledges to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them.

Then Rabshakeh stood, and cried with a loud voice in the Jews’ language, and spoke, saying, “Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria.

Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD, saying, “The LORD will surely deliver us, and this city shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”

Don’t listen to Hezekiah.’ For thus says the king of Assyria, ‘Make your peace with me, and come out to me; and everyone of you eat of his vine, and everyone of his fig tree, and everyone drink the waters of his own cistern;

Has any of the gods of the nations ever delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?

It may be the LORD your God will hear all the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master has sent to defy the living God, and will rebuke the words which the LORD your God has heard. Therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.’”

Isaiah said to them, “Thus you shall tell your master, ‘Thus says the LORD, “Don’t be afraid of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.

So Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah; for he had heard that he had departed from Lachish.

‘Thus you shall speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, “Don’t let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.

Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly. Will you be delivered?

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

Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘Whereas you have prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria, I have heard you.

“Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria, ‘He shall not come to this city, nor shoot an arrow there, neither shall he come before it with shield, nor cast up a mound against it.

So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and lived at Nineveh.

I will add to your days fifteen years. I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city for my own sake, and for my servant David’s sake.”’”

In his days Pharaoh Necoh king of Egypt went up against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates: and king Josiah went against him; and Pharaoh Necoh killed him at Megiddo, when he had seen him.

Beerah his son, whom Tilgath Pilneser king of Assyria carried away captive: he was prince of the Reubenites.

The God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tilgath Pilneser king of Assyria, and he carried them away, even the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and brought them to Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and to the river of Gozan, to this day.

At that time king Ahaz sent to the kings of Assyria to help him.

Tilgath Pilneser king of Assyria came to him, and distressed him, but didn’t strengthen him.

For Ahaz took away a portion out of the LORD’s house, and out of the house of the king and of the princes, and gave it to the king of Assyria: but it didn’t help him.

So the couriers went with the letters from the king and his princes throughout all Israel and Judah, and according to the commandment of the king, saying, “You children of Israel, turn again to the LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, that he may return to the remnant that have escaped of you out of the hand of the kings of Assyria.

After these things, and this faithfulness, Sennacherib king of Assyria came, and entered into Judah, and encamped against the fortified cities, and thought to win them for himself.

So many people gathered together, and they stopped all the springs, and the brook that flowed through the midst of the land, saying, “Why should the kings of Assyria come, and find much water?”