¹ It happened, when king Hezekiah heard it, that he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into Yahweh's house.

² He sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz.

³ They said to him, "Thus says Hezekiah, 'This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of rejection; for the children have come to the birth, and there is no strength to bring forth.

⁴ It may be Yahweh your God will hear the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master has sent to defy the living God, and will rebuke the words which Yahweh your God has heard. Therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.'"

⁵ So the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah.

⁶ Isaiah said to them, "Tell your master, 'Thus says Yahweh, "Don't be afraid of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.

⁷ Behold, I will put a spirit in him and he will hear news, and will return to his own land. I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land."'"

⁸ So Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah, for he had heard that he was departed from Lachish.

⁹ He heard news concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, "He has come out to fight against you." When he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,

¹⁰ "Thus you shall speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, 'Don't let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, "Jerusalem won't be given into the hand of the king of Assyria."

¹¹ Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly. Shall you be delivered?

¹² Have the gods of the nations delivered them, which my fathers have destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the children of Eden who were in Telassar?

¹³ Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivvah?'"

¹⁴ Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it. Then Hezekiah went up to Yahweh's house, and spread it before Yahweh.

¹⁵ Hezekiah prayed to Yahweh, saying,

¹⁶ "Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, who is enthroned among the cherubim, you are the God, even you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth.

¹⁷ Turn your ear, Yahweh, and hear. Open your eyes, Yahweh, and behold. hear all of the words of Sennacherib, who has sent to defy the living God.

¹⁸ Truly, Yahweh, the kings of Assyria have destroyed all the countries and their land,

¹⁹ and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone; therefore they have destroyed them.

²⁰ Now therefore, Yahweh our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you are Yahweh, even you only."

²¹ Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, "Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, 'Because you have prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria,

²² this is the word which Yahweh has spoken concerning him. The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and ridiculed you. The daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head at you.

²³ Whom have you defied and blasphemed? Against whom have you exalted your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel.

²⁴ By your servants, have you defied the Lord, and have said, "With the multitude of my chariots I have come up to the height of the mountains, to the innermost parts of Lebanon. I will cut down its tall cedars and its choice fir trees. I will enter into its farthest height, the forest of its fruitful field.

²⁵ I have dug and drunk water, and with the sole of my feet I will dry up all the rivers of Egypt."

²⁶ Have you not heard how I have done it long ago, and formed it in ancient times? Now I have brought it to pass, that it should be yours to destroy fortified cities, turning them into ruinous heaps.

²⁷ Therefore their inhabitants had little power. They were dismayed and confounded. They were like the grass of the field, and like the green herb, like the grass on the housetops, and like a field before its crop has grown.

²⁸ But I know your sitting down, your going out, your coming in, and your raging against me.

²⁹ Because of your raging against me, and because your arrogance has come up into my ears, therefore will I put my hook in your nose and my bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way by which you came.

³⁰ This shall be the sign to you. You will eat this year that which grows of itself, and in the second year that which springs from the same; and in the third year sow and reap and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit.

³¹ The remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah will again take root downward, and bear fruit upward.

³² For out of Jerusalem a remnant will go forth, and survivors will escape from Mount Zion. The zeal of Yahweh of Armies will perform this.'

³³ Therefore thus says Yahweh concerning the king of Assyria, 'He will not come to this city, nor shoot an arrow there, neither will he come before it with shield, nor cast up a mound against it.

³⁴ By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come to this city,' says Yahweh.

³⁵ 'For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake, and for my servant David's sake.'"

³⁶ The angel of Yahweh went out and struck one hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the camp of the Assyrians. When men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.

³⁷ So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, went away, returned to Nineveh, and stayed there.

³⁸ It happened, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons struck him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. Esar Haddon his son reigned in his place.

¹ "You shall not spread a false report. Don't join your hand with the wicked to be a malicious witness.

² "You shall not follow a crowd to do evil; neither shall you testify in court to side with a multitude to pervert justice;

³ neither shall you favor a poor man in his cause.

⁴ "If you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him again.

⁵ If you see the donkey of him who hates you fallen down under his burden, don't leave him, you shall surely help him with it.

⁶ "You shall not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits.

⁷ "Keep far from a false charge, and don't kill the innocent and righteous: for I will not justify the wicked.

⁸ "You shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds those who have sight and perverts the words of the righteous.

⁹ "You shall not oppress an alien, for you know the heart of an alien, since you were aliens in the land of Egypt.

¹⁰ "For six years you shall sow your land, and shall gather in its increase,

¹¹ but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the animal of the field shall eat. In the same way, you shall deal with your vineyard and with your olive grove.

¹² "Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest, that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your handmaid, and the alien may be refreshed.

¹³ "Be careful to do all things that I have said to you; and don't invoke the name of other gods, neither let them be heard out of your mouth.

¹⁴ "You shall observe a feast to me three times a year.

¹⁵ You shall observe the feast of unleavened bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month Abib (for in it you came out from Egypt), and no one shall appear before me empty.

¹⁶ And the feast of harvest, the first fruits of your labors, which you sow in the field: and the feast of harvest, at the end of the year, when you gather in your labors out of the field.

¹⁷ Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord Yahweh.

¹⁸ "You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread, neither shall the fat of my feast remain all night until the morning.

¹⁹ The first of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of Yahweh your God. "You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.

²⁰ "Behold, I send an angel before you, to keep you by the way, and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.

²¹ Pay attention to him, and listen to his voice. Don't provoke him, for he will not pardon your disobedience, for my name is in him.

²² But if you indeed listen to his voice, and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies, and an adversary to your adversaries.

²³ For my angel shall go before you, and bring you in to the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Canaanite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite; and I will cut them off.

²⁴ You shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor follow their practices, but you shall utterly overthrow them and demolish their pillars.

²⁵ You shall serve Yahweh your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from your midst.

²⁶ No one will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will fulfill the number of your days.

²⁷ I will send my terror before you, and will confuse all the people to whom you come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you.

²⁸ I will send the hornet before you, which will drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before you.

²⁹ I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the animals of the field multiply against you.

³⁰ Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and inherit the land.

³¹ I will set your border from the Red Sea even to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River; for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you.

³² You shall make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.

³³ They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me, for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you."