2 Kings 19
He Spread the Letter Out Before the Lord
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Hezekiah Sends to Isaiah
19:1When King Hezekiah heard, he tore his garments, put on sackcloth, and entered the Lord’s house.
19:2He sent Eliakim the steward, Somnas the scribe, and the elders of the priests, clothed in sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, son of Amos.
19:3They said to him, ‘Thus says Hezekiah: This day is a day of affliction, rebuke, and provocation. Children have reached the birth pains, but the woman giving birth has no strength.
19:4Perhaps the Lord your God will hear all Rhapsakes’s words, whom his master the king of the Assyrians sent to reproach the living God and to blaspheme with words which the Lord your God has heard. Take up a prayer for the remnant that remains.’
19:5King Hezekiah’s servants came to Isaiah.
19:6Isaiah said to them, ‘Tell your master: Thus says the Lord: Do not fear the words you have heard, with which the king of the Assyrians’ young servants blasphemed.
19:7Look, I am putting a spirit within him. He shall hear a report and return to his land, and I shall bring him down by the sword in his land.’
The Second Letter of Sennacherib
19:8Rhapsakes returned and found the king of the Assyrians fighting against Lomna, for he had heard that he had departed from Lachish.
19:9He heard concerning Tharaka king of the Ethiopians, ‘Look, he has come out to fight you.’ He returned and sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,
19:10‘Do not let your God, in whom you trust, lift you up by saying, “Jerusalem will certainly not be handed into the hands of the king of the Assyrians.”
19:11Look, you have heard everything the kings of the Assyrians did to all the lands, devoting them to destruction. And will you be rescued?
19:12Did the gods of the nations my fathers destroyed rescue them—Gozan, Charran, Raphes, and the sons of Edem in Thaesthen?
19:13Where are the king of Aimath and the king of Arphad? And where are Seppharouain, Ana, and Ava?’
The Prayer of Hezekiah
19:14Hezekiah took the letters from the messengers’ hand and read them. He went up to the Lord’s house, and Hezekiah unfolded them before the Lord.
19:15He said, ‘Lord, Israel’s God, seated upon the cherubim, You alone are God among all the kingdoms of the earth. You made heaven and earth.
19:16Incline Your ear, Lord, and hear. Open Your eyes, Lord, and see. Hear Sennacherib’s words, which he sent to reproach the living God.
19:17For truly, Lord, the kings of the Assyrians have devastated the nations
19:18and put their gods into the fire, for they are not gods but the work of human hands, wood and stones; so they destroyed them.
19:19Now, Lord our God, save us from his hand, and all the kingdoms of the earth will know that You are the Lord, God alone.’
The Word of the Lord Against Sennacherib
19:20Isaiah son of Amos sent to Hezekiah: ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, Israel’s God: What you prayed to Me concerning Sennacherib king of the Assyrians, I have heard.
19:21This is the word the Lord has spoken concerning him: Virgin daughter Zion despises you and sneers at you; daughter Jerusalem shakes her head at you.
19:22Whom have you reproached and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice? You have lifted your eyes on high against Israel’s Holy One!
19:23Through your messengers you reproached the Lord and said, “With the multitude of my chariots I shall climb the mountain heights, Lebanon’s flanks. I cut down its cedar’s height, its choice cypresses, and came to the melon of its extremity, the woodland of its Carmel.
19:24I cooled and drank foreign waters, and with my foot’s tread I dried up all rivers of enclosure.”
19:25I formed it; now I brought it. It became a carrying away into exiles of fighting men—fortified cities.
19:26Their inhabitants grew weak in hand, cowered, and were ashamed. They became field grass or green herbage, rooftop grass, and a trampling before one standing.
19:27I know your sitting, your going out, your coming in, and your anger against Me.
19:28Because you were angry with Me and your arrogance rose to My ears, I shall put My hooks in your nostrils and a bridle in your lips, and turn you back by the road on which you came.
The Sign Given to Hezekiah
19:29This shall be the sign for you: You shall eat this year what grows by itself, and in the second year what sprouts. In the third, sowing, harvest, and planting vineyards; you shall eat their fruit.
19:30The rescued remnant of Judah’s house shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward.
19:31For a remnant shall come out from Jerusalem, and one escaping from Mount Zion. The zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this.
19:32Not so! Thus says the Lord concerning the king of the Assyrians: He shall not enter this city or shoot an arrow there; no shield shall come before it, and he shall certainly not pour up a siege ramp against it.
19:33By the road on which he came he shall return; he shall not enter this city, says the Lord.
19:34I shall shield this city for My own sake and for the sake of David My servant.’
The Angel Strikes the Camp
19:35By night the Lord’s angel went out and struck one hundred eighty-five thousand in the Assyrians’ camp. When they rose early in the morning, look, they were all dead bodies.
19:36Sennacherib king of the Assyrians departed, went away, returned, and lived in Nineveh.
19:37As he was bowing down in the house of Neserach his god, his sons Adramelech and Sarasar struck him with the sword and escaped to the land of Ararat. His son Asordan became king in his place.
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Saints Translation · Liturgical reading edition · V1 · working draft awaiting specialist review.