Isaiah 37:10–33

¹⁰“Give this message to Hezekiah king of Judah:

‘Do not let your God, in whom you trust, deceive you by saying that Jerusalem will not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria. ¹¹Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the other countries, devoting them to destruction.^b Will you then be spared? ¹²Did the gods of the nations destroyed by my fathers rescue those nations— the gods of Gozan, Haran, and Rezeph, and of the people of Eden in Telassar? ¹³Where are the kings of Hamath, Arpad, Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?’”

¹⁴So Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers, read it, and went up to the house of the LORD and spread it out before the LORD. ¹⁵And Hezekiah prayed to the LORD:

¹⁶“O LORD of Hosts, God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You made the heavens and the earth. ¹⁷Incline Your ear, O LORD, and hear; open Your eyes, O LORD, and see. Listen to all the words that Sennacherib has sent to defy the living God.

¹⁸Truly, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all these countries and their lands. ¹⁹They 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.

²⁰And now, O LORD our God, save us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone, O LORD, are God.^c”

²¹Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah: “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Because you have prayed to Me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria, ²²this 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.

²³Whom have you taunted and blasphemed?

Against whom have you raised your voice

and lifted your eyes in pride?

Against the Holy One of Israel!

²⁴Through 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.^d

I have reached its farthest heights,

the densest of its forests.

²⁵I have dug wells

and drunk foreign^e waters.

With the soles of my feet

I have dried up all the streams of Egypt.”

²⁶Have 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.

²⁷Therefore their inhabitants, devoid of power,

are dismayed and ashamed.

They are like plants in the field,

tender green shoots,

grass on the rooftops,

scorched^f before it is grown.

²⁸But I know your sitting down,

your going out and coming in,

and your raging against Me.

²⁹Because 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.’

³⁰And 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.

³¹And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah

will again take root below

and bear fruit above.

³²For a remnant will go forth from Jerusalem,

and survivors from Mount Zion.

The zeal of the LORD of Hosts

will accomplish this.

³³So 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.