2 Kings 18; 2 Kings 19

1 In the third year of Osee, the son of Ela, king of Israel, reigned Ezechias, the son of Achaz, king of Juda.

2 He was five and twenty years old when he began to reign: and he reigned nine and twenty years in Jerusalem: the name of his mother was Abi, the daughter of Zacharias.

3 And he did that which was good before the Lord, according to all that David, his father, had done

4 He destroyed the high places, and broke the statues in pieces, and cut down the groves, and broke the brazen serpent, which Moses had made: for till that time the children of Israel burnt incense to it: and he called its name Nohestan.

5 He trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel: so that after him there was none like him among all the kings of Juda, nor any of them that were before him:

6 And he stuck to the Lord, and departed not from his steps, but kept his commandments, which the Lord commanded Moses.

7 Wherefore the Lord also was with him, and in all things, to which he went forth, he behaved himself wisely. And he rebelled against the king of the Assyrians, and served him not.

8 He smote the Philistines as far as Gaza, and all their borders, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city.

9 In the fourth year of king Ezechias, which was the seventh year of Osee, the son of Ela, king of Israel, Salmanasar, king of the Assyrians, came up to Samaria, and besieged it,

10 And took it. For after three years, in the sixth year of Ezechias, that is, in the ninth year of Osee, king of Israel, Samaria was taken:

11 And the king of the Assyrians carried away Israel into Assyria, and placed them in Hala, and in Habor, by the rivers of Gozan, in the cities of the Medes.

12 Because they hearkened not to the voice of the Lord, their God, but transgressed his covenant: all that Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded, they would not hear, nor do.

13 In the fourteenth year of king Ezechias, Sennacherib, king of the Assyrians, came up against the fenced cities of Juda, and took them.

14 Then Ezechias, king of Juda, sent messengers to the king of the Assyrians, to Lachis, saying: I have offended, depart from me: and all that thou shalt put upon me, I will bear. And the king of the Assyrians put a tax upon Ezechias, king of Juda, of three hundred talents of silver, and thirty talents of gold.

15 And Ezechias gave all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord, and in the king’s treasures.

16 At that time Ezechias broke the doors of the temple of the Lord, and the plates of gold which he had fastened on them, and gave them to the king of the Assyrians.

17 And the king of the Assyrians sent Tharthan, and Rabsaris, and Rabsaces, from Lachis, to king Ezechias, with a strong army, to Jerusalem: and they went up and came to Jerusalem, and they stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is in the way of the fuller’s field.

18 And they called for the king: and there went out to them Eliacim, the son of Helcias, who was over the house, and Sobna, the scribe, and Joahe, the son of Asaph, the recorder.

19 And Rabsaces said to them: Speak to Ezechias: Thus saith the great king, the king of the Assyrians: What is this confidence, wherein thou trustest?

20 Perhaps thou hast taken counsel, to prepare thyself for battle. On whom dost thou trust, that thou darest to rebel?

21 Dost thou trust in Egypt a staff of a broken reed, upon which if a man lean, it will break and go into his hand, and pierce it? so is Pharao, king of Egypt, to all that trust in him.

22 But if you say to me: We trust in the Lord, our God: is it not he, whose high places and altars Ezechias hath taken away: and hath commanded Juda and Jerusalem: You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem?

23 Now therefore come over to my master, the king of the Assyrians, and I will give you two thousand horses, and see whether you be able to have riders for them.

24 And how can you stand against one lord of the least of my master’s servants? Dost thou trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?

25 Is it without the will of the Lord that I am come up to this place to destroy it? The Lord said to me: Go up to this land, and destroy it.

26 Then Eliacim, the son of Helcias, and Sobna, and Joahe, said to Rabsaces: We pray thee, speak to us, thy servants, in Syriac: for we understand that tongue: and speak not to us in the Jews’ language, in the hearing of the people that are upon the wall.

27 And Rabsaces answered them, saying: Hath my master sent me to thy master, and to thee, to speak these words, and not rather to the men that sit upon the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their urine with you?

28 Then Rabsaces stood, and cried out with a loud voice in the Jews’ language, and said: Hear the word of the great king, the king of the Assyrians.

29 Thus saith the king: Let not Ezechias deceive you: for he shall not be able to deliver you out of my hand.

30 Neither let him 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 the Assyrians.

31 Do not hearken to Ezechias. For thus saith the king of the Assyrians: Do with me that which is for your advantage, and come out to me: and every man of you shall eat of his own vineyard, and of his own fig tree: and you shall drink water of your own cisterns,

32 Till I come, and take you away, to a land, like to your own land, a fruitful land, and plentiful in wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olives, and oil, and honey, and you shall live, and not die. Hearken not to Ezechias, who deceiveth you, saying: The Lord will deliver us.

33 Have any of the gods of the nations delivered their land from the hand of the king of Assyria?

34 Where is the god of Emath, and of Arphad? where is the god of Sepharvaim, of Ana, and of Ava? have they delivered Samaria out of my hand?

35 Who are they among all the gods of the nations that have delivered their country out of my hand, that the Lord may deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?

36 But the people held their peace, and answered him not a word: for they had received commandment from the king that they should not answer him.

37 And Eliacim, the son of Helcias, who was over the house, and Sobna, the scribe, and Joahe, the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Ezechias, with their garments rent, and told him the words of Rabsaces.

1 And when king Ezechias heard these words, he rent his garments, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord.

2 And he sent Eliacim, who was over the house, and Sobna, the scribe, and the ancients of the priests, covered with sackcloths, to Isaias, the prophet, the son of Amos.

3 And they said to him: Thus saith Ezechias: This day is a day of tribulation, and of rebuke, and of blasphemy: the children are come to the birth, and the woman in travail hath not strength.

4 It may be the Lord, thy God, will hear all the words of Rabsaces, whom the king of the Assyrians, his master, hath sent to reproach the living God, and to reprove with words, which the Lord, thy God, hath heard: and do thou offer prayer for the remnants that are found.

5 So the servants of king Ezechias came to Isaias.

6 And Isaias said to them: Thus shall you say to your master: Thus saith the Lord: Be not afraid for the words which thou hast heard, with which the servants of the king of the Assyrians have blasphemed me.

7 Behold I will send a spirit upon him, and he shall hear a message, and shall return into his own country, and I will make him fall by the sword in his own country.

8 And Rabsaces returned, and found the king of the Assyrians besieging Lobna: for he had heard that he was departed from Lachis.

9 And when he heard of Tharaca, king of Ethiopia: Behold, he is come out to fight with thee: and was going against him, he sent messengers to Ezechias, saying:

10 Thus shall you say to Ezechias, king of Juda: Let not thy God deceive thee, in whom thou trustest: and do not say: Jerusalem shall not be delivered into the hands of the king of the Assyrians.

11 Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of the Assyrians have done to all countries, how they have laid them waste: and canst thou alone be delivered?

12 Have the gods of the nations delivered any of them, whom my fathers have destroyed, to wit, Gozan, and Haran, and Reseph, and the children of Eden, that were in Thelassar?

13 Where is the king of Emath, and the king of Arphad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, and of Ana, and of Ava?

14 And when Ezechias had received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and had read it, he went up to the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord,

15 And he prayed in his sight, saying: O Lord God of Israel, who sittest upon the cherubims, thou alone art the God of all the kings of the earth: thou madest heaven and earth:

16 Incline thy ear, and hear: open, O Lord, thy eyes and see: and hear all the words of Sennacherib, who hath sent to upbraid unto us the living God.

17 Of a truth, O Lord, the kings of the Assyrians have destroyed nations, and the lands of them all.

18 And they have cast their gods into the fire: for they were not gods, but the work of men’s hands, of wood and stone, and they destroyed them.

19 Now therefore, O Lord our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the Lord, the only God.

20 And Isaias, the son of Amos, sent to Ezechias, saying: Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel: I have heard the prayer thou hast made to me concerning Sennacherib, king of the Assyrians.

21 This is the word that the Lord hath spoken of him: The virgin, the daughter of Sion, hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn: the daughter of Jerusalem hath wagged her head behind thy back.

22 Whom hast thou reproached, and whom hast thou blasphemed? against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thy eyes on high? against the holy one of Israel.

23 By the hand of thy servants thou hast reproached the Lord, and hast said: With the multitude of my chariots I have gone up to the height of the mountains, to the top of Libanus, and have cut down its tall cedars, and its choice fir trees. And I have entered into the furthest parts thereof, and the forest of its Carmel.

24 I have cut down, and I have drunk strange waters, and have dried up with the soles of my feet all the shut up waters.

25 Hast thou not heard what I have done from the beginning? from the days of old I have formed it, and now I have brought it to effect: that fenced cities of fighting men should be turned to heaps of ruins:

26 And the inhabitants of them were weak of hand, they trembled and were confounded, they became like the grass of the field, and the green herb on the tops of houses, which withered before it came to maturity.

27 Thy dwelling, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy way I knew before, and thy rage against me.

28 Thou hast been mad against me, and thy pride hath come up to my ears: therefore I will put a ring in thy nose, and a bit between thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest.

29 And to thee, O Ezechias, this shall be a sign: Eat this year what thou shalt find: and in the second year, such things as spring of themselves: but in the third year sow and reap: plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them.

30 And whatsoever shall be left of the house of Juda, shall take root downward, and bear fruit upward.

31 For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and that which shall be saved out of mount Sion: the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this.

32 Wherefore thus saith the Lord concerning the king of the Assyrians: He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow into it, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a trench about it.

33 By the way that he came he shall return: and into this city he shall not come, saith the Lord.

34 And I will protect this city, and will save it for my own sake, and for David, my servant’s sake.

35 And it came to pass that night, that an angel of the Lord came, and slew in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five thousand. And when he arose early in the morning, he saw all the bodies of the dead.

36 And Sennacherib, king of the Assyrians, departing, went away, and he returned and abode in Ninive.

37 And as he was worshipping in the temple of Nesroch, his god, Adramelech and Sarasar, his sons, slew him with the sword, and they fled into the land of the Armenians, and Asarhaddon, his son, reigned in his stead.