| 19:1 | When King Hezekiah heard this, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and went into the temple of the LORD.
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| 19:2 | He sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary and the leading priests, all wearing sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz.
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| 19:3 | They told him, "This is what Hezekiah says |
| 19:4 | It may be that the LORD your God will hear all the words of the field commander, whom his master, the king of Assyria, has sent to ridicule the living God, and that he will rebuke him for the words the LORD your God has heard. Therefore pray for the remnant that still survives."
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| 19:5 | When King Hezekiah's officials came to Isaiah,
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| 19:6 | Isaiah said to them, "Tell your master, "This is what the LORD says |
| 19:7 | Listen! I am going to put such a spirit in him that when he hears a certain report, he will return to his own country, and there I will have him cut down with the sword.""
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| 19:8 | When the field commander heard that the king of Assyria had left Lachish, he withdrew and found the king fighting against Libnah.
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| 19:9 | Now Sennacherib received a report that Tirhakah, the Cushite king [of Egypt], was marching out to fight against him. So he again sent messengers to Hezekiah with this word |
| 19:10 | "Say to Hezekiah king of Judah |
| 19:11 | Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the countries, destroying them completely. And will you be delivered?
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| 19:12 | Did the gods of the nations that were destroyed by my forefathers deliver them |
| 19:13 | Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, or of Hena or Ivvah?"
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| 19:14 | Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it. Then he went up to the temple of the LORD and spread it out before the LORD.
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| 19:15 | And Hezekiah prayed to the LORD |
| 19:16 | Give ear, O LORD, and hear; open your eyes, O LORD, and see; listen to the words Sennacherib has sent to insult the living God.
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| 19:17 | "It is true, O LORD, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste these nations and their lands.
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| 19:18 | They have thrown their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods but only wood and stone, fashioned by men's hands.
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| 19:19 | Now, O LORD our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O LORD, are God."
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| 19:20 | Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah |
| 19:21 | This is the word that the LORD has spoken against him |
| 19:22 | Who is it you have insulted and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes in pride? Against the Holy One of Israel!
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| 19:23 | By your messengers you have heaped insults on the Lord. And you have said, "With my many chariots I have ascended the heights of the mountains, the utmost heights of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars, the choicest of its pines. I have reached its remotest parts, the finest of its forests.
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| 19:24 | I have dug wells in foreign lands and drunk the water there. With the soles of my feet I have dried up all the streams of Egypt."
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| 19:25 | ""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 have turned fortified cities into piles of stone.
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| 19:26 | Their people, drained of power, are dismayed and put to shame. They are like plants in the field, like tender green shoots, like grass sprouting on the roof, scorched before it grows up.
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| 19:27 | ""But I know where you stay and when you come and go and how you rage against me.
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| 19:28 | Because you rage against me and your insolence has reached my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth, and I will make you return by the way you came."
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| 19:29 | "This will be the sign for you, O Hezekiah |
| 19:30 | Once more a remnant of the house of Judah will take root below and bear fruit above.
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| 19:31 | For out of Jerusalem will come a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.
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| 19:32 | "Therefore this is what the LORD says concerning the king of Assyria |
| 19:33 | By the way that he came he will return; he will not enter this city, declares the LORD.
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| 19:34 | I will defend this city and save it, for my sake and for the sake of David my servant."
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| 19:35 | That night the angel of the LORD went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning-- there were all the dead bodies!
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| 19:36 | So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there.
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| 19:37 | One day, while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer cut him down with the sword, and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son succeeded him as king.
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| 20:1 | In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to him and said, "This is what the LORD says |
| 20:2 | Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD,
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| 20:3 | "Remember, O LORD, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes." And Hezekiah wept bitterly.
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| 20:4 | Before Isaiah had left the middle court, the word of the LORD came to him |
| 20:5 | "Go back and tell Hezekiah, the leader of my people, "This is what the LORD, the God of your father David, says |
| 20:6 | I will add fifteen years to your life. And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city for my sake and for the sake of my servant David.""
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| 20:7 | Then Isaiah said, "Prepare a poultice of figs." They did so and applied it to the boil, and he recovered.
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| 20:8 | Hezekiah had asked Isaiah, "What will be the sign that the LORD will heal me and that I will go up to the temple of the LORD on the third day from now?"
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| 20:9 | Isaiah answered, "This is the LORD's sign to you that the LORD will do what he has promised |
| 20:10 | "It is a simple matter for the shadow to go forward ten steps," said Hezekiah. "Rather, have it go back ten steps."
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| 20:11 | Then the prophet Isaiah called upon the LORD, and the LORD made the shadow go back the ten steps it had gone down on the stairway of Ahaz.
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| 20:12 | At that time Merodach-Baladan son of Baladan king of Babylon sent Hezekiah letters and a gift, because he had heard of Hezekiah's illness.
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| 20:13 | Hezekiah received the messengers and showed them all that was in his storehouses-- the silver, the gold, the spices and the fine oil-- his armory and everything found among his treasures. There was nothing in his palace or in all his kingdom that Hezekiah did not show them.
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| 20:14 | Then Isaiah the prophet went to King Hezekiah and asked, "What did those men say, and where did they come from?" "From a distant land," Hezekiah replied. "They came from Babylon."
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| 20:15 | The prophet asked, "What did they see in your palace?" "They saw everything in my palace," Hezekiah said. "There is nothing among my treasures that I did not show them."
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| 20:16 | Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, "Hear the word of the LORD |
| 20:17 | The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your fathers have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the LORD.
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| 20:18 | And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood, that will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon."
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| 20:19 | "The word of the LORD you have spoken is good," Hezekiah replied. For he thought, "Will there not be peace and security in my lifetime?"
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| 20:20 | As for the other events of Hezekiah's reign, all his achievements and how he made the pool and the tunnel by which he brought water into the city, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah?
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| 20:21 | Hezekiah rested with his fathers. And Manasseh his son succeeded him as king.
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| 21:1 | Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem fifty-five years. His mother's name was Hephzibah.
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| 21:2 | He did evil in the eyes of the LORD, following the detestable practices of the nations the LORD had driven out before the Israelites.
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| 21:3 | He rebuilt the high places his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he also erected altars to Baal and made an Asherah pole, as Ahab king of Israel had done. He bowed down to all the starry hosts and worshiped them.
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| 21:4 | He built altars in the temple of the LORD, of which the LORD had said, "In Jerusalem I will put my Name."
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| 21:5 | In both courts of the temple of the LORD, he built altars to all the starry hosts.
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| 21:6 | He sacrificed his own son in the fire, practiced sorcery and divination, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the eyes of the LORD, provoking him to anger.
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| 21:7 | He took the carved Asherah pole he had made and put it in the temple, of which the LORD had said to David and to his son Solomon, "In this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my Name forever.
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| 21:8 | I will not again make the feet of the Israelites wander from the land I gave their forefathers, if only they will be careful to do everything I commanded them and will keep the whole Law that my servant Moses gave them."
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| 21:9 | But the people did not listen. Manasseh led them astray, so that they did more evil than the nations the LORD had destroyed before the Israelites.
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| 21:10 | The LORD said through his servants the prophets |
| 21:11 | "Manasseh king of Judah has committed these detestable sins. He has done more evil than the Amorites who preceded him and has led Judah into sin with his idols.
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| 21:12 | Therefore this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says |
| 21:13 | I will stretch out over Jerusalem the measuring line used against Samaria and the plumb line used against the house of Ahab. I will wipe out Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down.
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| 21:14 | I will forsake the remnant of my inheritance and hand them over to their enemies. They will be looted and plundered by all their foes,
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| 21:15 | because they have done evil in my eyes and have provoked me to anger from the day their forefathers came out of Egypt until this day."
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| 21:16 | Moreover, Manasseh also shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end-- besides the sin that he had caused Judah to commit, so that they did evil in the eyes of the LORD.
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| 21:17 | As for the other events of Manasseh's reign, and all he did, including the sin he committed, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah?
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| 21:18 | Manasseh rested with his fathers and was buried in his palace garden, the garden of Uzza. And Amon his son succeeded him as king.
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| 21:19 | Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem two years. His mother's name was Meshullemeth daughter of Haruz; she was from Jotbah.
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| 21:20 | He did evil in the eyes of the LORD, as his father Manasseh had done.
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| 21:21 | He walked in all the ways of his father; he worshiped the idols his father had worshiped, and bowed down to them.
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| 21:22 | He forsook the LORD, the God of his fathers, and did not walk in the way of the LORD.
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| 21:23 | Amon's officials conspired against him and assassinated the king in his palace.
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| 21:24 | Then the people of the land killed all who had plotted against King Amon, and they made Josiah his son king in his place.
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| 21:25 | As for the other events of Amon's reign, and what he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah?
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| 21:26 | He was buried in his grave in the garden of Uzza. And Josiah his son succeeded him as king.
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