English Standard Version ESV
The Message Bible MSG
1 As soon as King Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the LORD.
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When Hezekiah heard it all, he too ripped his robes apart and dressed himself in rough burlap. Then he went into The Temple of God.
2 And he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and the senior priests, covered with sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz.
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He sent Eliakim, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the secretary, and the senior priests, all of them dressed in rough burlap, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz.
3 They said to him, "Thus says Hezekiah, This day is a day of distress, of rebuke, and of disgrace; children have come to the point of birth, and there is no strength to bring them forth.
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They said to him, "A message from Hezekiah: 'This is a black day, a terrible day - doomsday! Babies poised to be born, No strength to birth them.
4 It may be that the LORD your God heard all the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to mock the living God, and will rebuke the words that the LORD your God has heard; therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left."
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"'Maybe God, your God, has been listening to the blasphemous speech of the Rabshakeh who was sent by the king of Assyria, his master, to humiliate the living God; maybe God, your God, won't let him get by with such talk; and you, maybe you will lift up prayers for what's left of these people.'"
5 When the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah,
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That's the message King Hezekiah's servants delivered to Isaiah.
6 Isaiah said to them, "Say to your master, 'Thus says the LORD: Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have reviled me.
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Isaiah answered them, "Tell your master, 'God's word: Don't be at all concerned about what you've heard from the king of Assyria's bootlicking errand boys - these outrageous blasphemies.
7 Behold, I will put a spirit in him, so that he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land, and I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.'"
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Here's what I'm going to do: Afflict him with self-doubt. He's going to hear a rumor and, frightened for his life, retreat to his own country. Once there, I'll see to it that he gets killed.'"
8 The Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah, for he heard that the king had left Lachish.
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The Rabshakeh left and found that the king of Assyria had pulled up stakes from Lachish and was now fighting against Libnah.
9 Now the king heard concerning Tirhakah king of Cush, "Behold, he has set out to fight against you." So he sent messengers again to Hezekiah, saying,
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Then Sennacherib heard that Tirhakah king of Cush was on his way to fight against him. So he sent another envoy with orders to deliver this message to Hezekiah king of Judah:
10 "Thus shall you speak to Hezekiah king of Judah: 'Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you by promising that Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.
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"Don't let that god that you think so much of keep stringing you along with the line, 'Jerusalem will never fall to the king of Assyria.' That's a barefaced lie.
11 Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, devoting them to destruction. And shall you be delivered?
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You know the track record of the kings of Assyria - country after country laid waste, devastated. And what makes you think you'll be an exception?
12 Have the gods of the nations delivered them, the nations that my fathers destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Telassar?
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Take a good look at these wasted nations, destroyed by my ancestors; did their gods do them any good? Look at Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, the people of Eden at Tel Assar. Ruins.
13 Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, the king of Hena, or the king of Ivvah?'"
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And what's left of the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of Sepharvaim, of Hena, of Ivvah? Bones."
14 Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the LORD and spread it before the LORD.
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Hezekiah took the letter from the envoy and read it. He went to The Temple of God and spread it out before God.
15 And Hezekiah prayed before the LORD and said: "O LORD, the God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth.
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And Hezekiah prayed - oh, how he prayed! God, God of Israel, seated in majesty on the cherubim-throne. You are the one and only God, sovereign over all kingdoms on earth, Maker of heaven, maker of earth.
16 Incline your ear, O LORD, and hear; open your eyes, O LORD, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God.
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Open your ears, God, and listen, open your eyes and look. Look at this letter Sennacherib has sent, a brazen insult to the living God!
17 Truly, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands
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The facts are true, O God: The kings of Assyria have laid waste countries and kingdoms.
18 and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed.
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Huge bonfires they made of their gods, their no-gods hand-made from wood and stone.
19 So now, O LORD our God, save us, please, from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O LORD, are God alone."
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But now O God, our God, save us from raw Assyrian power; Make all the kingdoms on earth know that you are God, the one and only God.
20 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Your prayer to me about Sennacherib king of Assyria I have heard.
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It wasn't long before Isaiah son of Amoz sent word to Hezekiah:
21 This is the word that the LORD has spoken concerning him: "She despises you, she scorns you-- the virgin daughter of Zion; she wags her head behind you-- the daughter of Jerusalem.
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This is my response to him: The Virgin Daughter of Zion holds you in utter contempt; Daughter Jerusalem thinks you're nothing but scum.
22 "Whom have you mocked and reviled? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes to the heights? Against the Holy One of Israel!
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Who do you think it is you've insulted? Who do you think you've been bad-mouthing? Before whom do you suppose you've been strutting? The Holy One of Israel, that's who!
23 By your messengers you have mocked the Lord, and you have said, 'With my many chariots I have gone up the heights of the mountains, to the far recesses of Lebanon; I felled its tallest cedars, its choicest cypresses; I entered its farthest lodging place, its most fruitful forest.
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You dispatched your errand boys to humiliate the Master. You bragged, "With my army of chariots I've climbed the highest mountains, snow-peaked alpine Lebanon mountains! I've cut down its giant cedars, chopped down its prize pine trees. I've traveled the world, visited the finest forest retreats.
24 I dug wells and drank foreign waters, and I dried up with the sole of my foot all the streams of Egypt.'
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I've dug wells in faraway places and drunk their exotic waters; I've waded and splashed barefoot in the rivers of Egypt."
25 "Have you not heard that I determined it long ago? I planned from days of old what now I bring to pass, that you should turn fortified cities into heaps of ruins,
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Did it never occur to you that I'm behind all this? Long, long ago I drew up the plans, and now I've gone into action, Using you as a doomsday weapon, reducing proud cities to piles of rubble,
26 while their inhabitants, shorn of strength, are dismayed and confounded, and have become like plants of the field and like tender grass, like grass on the housetops, blighted before it is grown.
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Leaving their people dispirited, slumped shoulders, limp souls. Useless as weeds, fragile as grass, insubstantial as wind-blown chaff.
27 "But I know your sitting down and your going out and coming in, and your raging against me.
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I know when you sit down, when you come and when you go; And, yes, I've marked every one of your temper tantrums against me.
28 Because you have raged against me and your complacency has come into my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth, and I will turn you back on the way by which you came.
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It's because of your temper, your blasphemous foul temper, That I'm putting my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth And turning you back to where you came from.
29 "And this shall be the sign for you: this year eat what grows of itself, and in the second year what springs of the same. Then in the third year sow and reap and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit.
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And this, Hezekiah, will be for you the confirming sign: This year you'll eat the gleanings, next year whatever you can beg, borrow, or steal; But the third year you'll sow and harvest, plant vineyards and eat grapes.
30 And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward.
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A remnant of the family of Judah yet again will sink down roots and raise up fruit.
31 For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the LORD will do this.
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The remnant will come from Jerusalem, the survivors from Mount Zion. The Zeal of God will make it happen.
32 "Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow there, or come before it with a shield or cast up a siege mound against it.
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To sum up, this is what God says regarding the king of Assyria: He won't enter this city, nor shoot so much as a single arrow there; Won't brandish a shield, won't even begin to set siege;
33 By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, declares the LORD.
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He'll go home by the same road he came; he won't enter this city. God's word!
34 For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David."
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I'll shield this city, I'll save this city, for my sake and for David's sake.
35 And that night the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.
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And it so happened that that very night an angel of God came and massacred a hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrians. When the people of Jerusalem got up next morning, there it was - a whole camp of corpses!
36 Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went home and lived at Nineveh.
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Sennacherib king of Assyria got out of there fast, headed straight home for Nineveh, and stayed put.
37 And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, struck him down with the sword and escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.
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One day when he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer murdered him and then escaped to the land of Ararat. His son Esarhaddon became the next king.
The English Standard Version is published with the permission of Good News Publishers.
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.