Sennacherib’s Fall Prophesied

(Isaiah 37:21–35)

20 Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah: “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I have heard your prayer concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria. 21 This 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.

22 Whom have you taunted and blasphemed?

Against whom have you raised your voice

and lifted your eyes in pride?

Against the Holy One of Israel!

23 Through 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.[fn]

I have reached its farthest outposts,

the densest of its forests.

24 I have dug wells

and drunk foreign waters.

With the soles of my feet

I have dried up all the streams of Egypt.”

25 Have 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.

26 Therefore their inhabitants, devoid of power,

are dismayed and ashamed.

They are like plants in the field,

tender green shoots,

grass on the rooftops,

scorched before it is grown.

27 But I know your sitting down,

your going out and coming in,

and your raging against Me.

28 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.’

29 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.

30 And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah

will again take root below

and bear fruit above.

31 For a remnant will go forth from Jerusalem,

and survivors from Mount Zion.

The zeal of the LORD of Hosts [fn]

will accomplish this.

32 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.

33 He will go back the way he came,

and he will not enter this city,’

declares the LORD.

34 ‘I will defend this city

and save it

for My own sake

and for the sake of My servant David.’ ”