OET-RV 2KI Chapter 19

19 When King Hizkiyyah heard the threats from the Assyrian king, he tore his clothes and dressed in sackcloth, and went into Yahweh’s temple. 2 He sent his palace manager Elyakim and the scribe Shebna, along with the elders of the priests, all dressed in sackcloth, to Amots’s son Yeshayah (Isaiah) the prophet 3 to tell him, “Hizkiyyah says: ‘Today is a day of distress and rebuke and disgrace, as if the baby is right there ready to be delivered, but the mother has lost all her strength. 4 Perhaps your God Yahweh has heard everything that the chief commander said when his master the Assyrian king sent him: he defied the living God, and so maybe your God Yahweh will punish him for his words. Lift up a prayer on behalf of the people that are still left here.’ ”

5 When King Hizkiyyah’s servants got to Yeshayah, 6 he told them, “This is what you all should tell your master: Yahweh says that you needn’t be afraid of what you heard when those young men from the Assyrian king insulted him. 7 Listen, Yahweh will cause him to hear a report and he’ll place a fearful spirit in him so he’ll decide to return to his own country where he’ll be assassinated.”

8 When the chief commander returned to the Assyrian king, he discovered that they’d pulled out of Lakish and were now fighting against Livnah city. 9 Then the king heard that the Ethiopian King Tirhakah was preparing to attack, so he decided to return home but he sent messengers to Hizkiyyah to say, 10 “Tell Yehudah’s King Hizkiyyah not to let the God he trusts in deceive him by telling him that Yerushalem won’t be captured by the king of Assyria. 11 Tell him that he must have heard how the Assyrian armies have completely devastated other countries, so he shouldn’t think that he will be saved from it. 12 The gods of the countries destroyed by my ancestors never saved them—those in Gozan, Haran, Retsef, or Eden’s descendants in Telassar. 13 Where’s the king of Hamat, or the king of Arpad, or the kings of the cities of Sefarvayim, Hena, or Ivvah now?”

14 Hizkiyyah took the letter that the messengers had brought and read it, then he went up to the temple and spread it out in front of Yahweh 15 and prayed to him, “Yahweh the God of Israel, who lives above the winged creatures. You alone are God—the one over all the kingdoms of the earth. You yourself made the heavens and the earth.[ref] 16 Lean this way, Yahweh, and look, and listen to Sanheriv’s words mocking the living God. 17 Yes Yahweh, the Assyrian kings have certainly destroyed many countries and their lands. 18 The Assyrians burnt the peoples’ gods because they weren’t living gods, but rather gods of wood and stone made by people and they’ve destroyed them. 19 But now Yahweh our God, please save us, from his army, then all the kingdoms in the world will know that you, Yahweh, are God—you alone.”

20 Then Amots’s son Yeshayah (Isaiah) sent this message to Hizkiyyah: Israel’s God Yahweh says, “Because you prayed to me concerning the Assyrian King Sanheriv, I have listened. 21 This is what Yahweh says about that king:

Tsiyyon’s daughter despises you and derides you.

≈Yerushalem’s daughter shakes her head at you.

22 Who did you think you were teasing and insulting?

Who did you think you were shouting at?

Did you raise your eyebrows against Israel’s holy one.

23 You sent messengers that mocked me.

You said that you went over the highest mountains with your many chariots.

≈That you went to the highest parts of Lebanon and harvested its tallest cedars—its best trees.

That you’ve been to the end of the inhabited world with its densest forest.

24 You said that you’ve dug wells far away and drunk their water,

yet with your own feet you dried up all of Egypt’s rivers.

25 Haven’t you heard that I made plans long ago—

that what I previously planned, I’m now making it happen?

Fortified cities will collapse into heaps of rubble.

26 Their inhabitants will be powerless—dismayed and ashamed.

They’ll be as vulnerable as plants in the countryside,

or like the grass that grows on the rooftops—

they wilt and wither before they can grow tall. DOUBLE-CHECK

27 Yes, I know when you sit down and when you go out.

When you come in and rage against me.

28 Because you’ve raged against me and your arrogance has come to my ears,

I’ll put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth,

and I’ll lead you back on the road that you came here on.

29 “So this will be a sign to you Hizkiyyah:

This year you’ll eat what grew by itself,

and next year whatever seeded by itself,

but in the third year you’ll sow crops and plant vineyards, and eat what you harvest.

30 Yehudah’s surviving descendants will send their roots downwards and will produce fruit above,

31 because a remnant will survive Yerushalem’s siege,

≈and Mt. Tsiyyon will have survivors

because Yahweh’s enthusiasm will make sure it happens.

32 “So this is what Yahweh says to the Assyrian king:

He won’t enter this city or shoot an arrow into it.

He won’t push a large shield towards it or make a ramp up into it.

33 He’ll return on the same road that he arrived on,

and Yahweh declares that he won’t enter this city,

34 because Yahweh will defend this city

to save it for his own sake

and for the sake of his servant David.”

35 That very night, Yahweh sent an angel out to kill 185,000 warriors, so when the army got up early the next morning there were dead bodies all over the place. 36 So the Assyrian King Sanheriv pulled out and went back to live in Nineveh. 37 While he was bowing in the temple of his god Nisrok, Adrammelek and Sharezer ran him through with a sword before escaping to the Ararat region, and so his son Esarhaddon replaced him as king.