The Bible in Basic English BBE
Good News Translation GNT
1 And on hearing it Hezekiah took off his robe and put on haircloth and went into the house of the Lord.
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As soon as King Hezekiah heard their report, he tore his clothes in grief, put on sackcloth, and went to the Temple of the Lord.
2 And he sent Eliakim, who was over the house, and Shebna the scribe, and the chief priests, dressed in haircloth, to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz.
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He sent Eliakim, the official in charge of the palace, Shebna, the court secretary, and the senior priests to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. They also were wearing sackcloth.
3 And they said to him, Hezekiah says, This day is a day of trouble and punishment and shame: for the children are ready to come to birth, but there is no strength to give birth to them.
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This is the message which he told them to give to Isaiah: "Today is a day of suffering; we are being punished and are in disgrace. We are like a woman who is ready to give birth, but is too weak to do it.
4 It may be that the Lord your God will give ear to the words of the Rab-shakeh, whom the king of Assyria, his master, has sent to say evil things against the living God, and will make his words come to nothing: so make your prayer for the rest of the people.
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The Assyrian emperor has sent his chief official to insult the living God. May the Lord your God hear these insults and punish those who spoke them. So pray to God for those of our people who survive."
5 So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah.
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When Isaiah received King Hezekiah's message,
6 And Isaiah said to them, This is what you are to say to your master: The Lord says, Be not troubled by the words which the servants of the king of Assyria have said against me in your hearing.
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he sent back this answer: "The Lord tells you not to let the Assyrians frighten you by their claims that he cannot save you.
7 See, I will put a spirit into him, and bad news will come to his ears, and he will go back to his land; and there I will have him put to death.
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The Lord will cause the emperor to hear a rumor that will make him go back to his own country, and the Lord will have him killed there."
8 So the Rab-shakeh went back, and when he got there the king of Assyria was making war against Libnah: for it had come to his ears that the king of Assyria had gone away from Lachish.
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The Assyrian official learned that the emperor had left Lachish and was fighting against the nearby city of Libnah; so he went there to consult him.
9 And when news came to him that Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia, had made an attack on him, ... And he sent representatives to Hezekiah, king of Judah, saying,
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Word reached the Assyrians that the Egyptian army, led by King Tirhakah of Ethiopia, was coming to attack them. When the emperor heard this, he sent a letter to King Hezekiah
10 This is what you are to say to Hezekiah, king of Judah: Let not your God, in whom is your faith, give you a false hope, saying, Jerusalem will not be given into the hands of the king of Assyria.
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of Judah to tell him: "The god you are trusting in has told you that you will not fall into my hands, but don't let that deceive you.
11 No doubt the story has come to your ears of what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, putting them to the curse: and will you be kept safe from their fate?
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You have heard what an Assyrian emperor does to any country he decides to destroy. Do you think that you can escape?
12 Did the gods of the nations keep safe those on whom my fathers sent destruction, Gozan and Haran and Rezeph, and the children of Eden who were in Telassar?
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My ancestors destroyed the cities of Gozan, Haran, and Rezeph, and killed the people of Betheden who lived in Telassar, and none of their gods could save them.
13 Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the town of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivva?
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Where are the kings of the cities of Hamath, Arpad, Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?"
14 And Hezekiah took the letter from the hands of those who had come with it; and after reading it, Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord, opening the letter there before the Lord,
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King Hezekiah took the letter from the messengers and read it. Then he went to the Temple, placed the letter there in the presence of the Lord,
15 And he made prayer to the Lord, saying,
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and prayed,
16 O Lord of armies, the God of Israel, seated between the winged ones, you only are the God of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth.
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"Almighty Lord, God of Israel, seated above the winged creatures, you alone are God, ruling all the kingdoms of the world. You created the earth and the sky.
17 Let your ear be turned to us, O Lord; let your eyes be open, O Lord, and see: take note of all the words of Sennacherib who has sent men to say evil against the living God.
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Now, Lord, hear us and look at what is happening to us. Listen to all the things that Sennacherib is saying to insult you, the living God.
18 Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have made waste all the nations and their lands,
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We all know, Lord, that the emperors of Assyria have destroyed many nations, made their lands desolate,
19 And have given their gods to the fire: for they were no gods, but wood and stone, the work of men's hands; so they have given them to destruction.
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and burned up their gods - which were no gods at all, only images of wood and stone made by human hands.
20 But now, O Lord our God, give us salvation from his hand, so that it may be clear to all the kingdoms of the earth that you, and you only, are the Lord.
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Now, Lord our God, rescue us from the Assyrians, so that all the nations of the world will know that you alone are God."
21 Then Isaiah, the son of Amoz, sent to Hezekiah, saying, The Lord, the God of Israel, says, The prayer you have made to me against Sennacherib, king of Assyria, has come to my ears.
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Then Isaiah sent a message telling King Hezekiah that in answer to the king's prayer
22 This is the word which the Lord has said about him: In the eyes of the virgin daughter of Zion you are shamed and laughed at; the daughter of Jerusalem has made sport of you.
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the Lord had said, "The city of Jerusalem laughs at you, Sennacherib, and makes fun of you.
23 Against whom have you said evil and bitter things? and against whom has your voice been loud and your eyes lifted up? even against the Holy One of Israel.
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Whom do you think you have been insulting and ridiculing? You have been disrespectful to me, the holy God of Israel.
24 You have sent your servants with evil words against the Lord, and have said, With all my war-carriages I have come up to the top of the mountains, to the inmost parts of Lebanon; and its tall cedars will be cut down, and the best trees of its woods: I will come up into his highest places, into his thick woods.
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You sent your servants to boast to me that with all your chariots you had conquered the highest mountains of Lebanon. You boasted that there you cut down the tallest cedars and the finest cypress trees, and that you reached the deepest parts of the forests.
25 I have made water-holes and taken their waters, and with my foot I have made all the rivers of Egypt dry.
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You boasted that you dug wells and drank water in foreign lands, and that the feet of your soldiers tramped the Nile River dry.
26 Has it not come to your ears how I did it long before, purposing it in times long past? Now I have given effect to my design, so that by you strong towns might be turned into masses of broken walls.
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"Have you never heard that I planned all this long ago? And now I have carried it out. I gave you the power to turn fortified cities into piles of rubble.
27 This is why their townsmen had no power, they were broken and put to shame; they were like the grass of the field, or a green plant; like the grass on the house-tops, which a cold wind makes waste.
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The people who lived there were powerless; they were frightened and stunned. They were like grass in a field or weeds growing on a roof when the hot east wind blasts them.
28 But I have knowledge of your getting up and your resting, of your going out and your coming in.
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"But I know everything about you, what you do and where you go. I know how you rage against me.
29 Because your wrath against me and your pride have come to my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my cord in your lips, and I will make you go back by the way you came.
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I have received the report of that rage and that pride of yours, and now I will put a hook through your nose and a bit in your mouth and will take you back by the same road you came."
30 And this will be the sign to you: you will get your food this year from what comes up of itself, and in the second year from the produce of the same; and in the third year you will put in your seed, and get in the grain, and make vine-gardens, and take of their fruit.
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Then Isaiah said to King Hezekiah, "Here is a sign of what will happen. This year and next you will have only wild grain to eat, but the following year you will be able to plant grain and harvest it, and plant vines and eat grapes.
31 And those of Judah who are still living will again take root in the earth, and give fruit.
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Those in Judah who survive will flourish like plants that send roots deep into the ground and produce fruit.
32 For from Jerusalem those who have been kept safe will go out, and those who are still living will go out of Mount Zion: by the fixed purpose of the Lord of armies this will be done.
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There will be people in Jerusalem and on Mount Zion who will survive, because the Lord Almighty is determined to make this happen.
33 For this cause the Lord says about the king of Assyria, He will not come into this town, or send an arrow against it; he will not come before it with arms, or put up an earthwork against it.
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"And this is what the Lord has said about the Assyrian emperor: "He will not enter this city or shoot a single arrow against it. No soldiers with shields will come near the city, and no siege mounds will be built around it.
34 By the way he came he will go back, and he will not get into this town.
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He will go back by the same road he came, without entering this city. I, the Lord, have spoken.
35 For I will keep this town safe, for my honour, and for the honour of my servant David.
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I will defend this city and protect it, for the sake of my own honor and because of the promise I made to my servant David.' "
36 And the angel of the Lord went out and put to death in the army of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five thousand men: and when the people got up early in the morning, there was nothing to be seen but dead bodies.
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An angel of the Lord went to the Assyrian camp and killed 185,000 soldiers. At dawn the next day there they lay, all dead!
37 Sennacherib, king of Assyria, went back to his place at Nineveh.
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Then the Assyrian emperor Sennacherib withdrew and returned to Nineveh.
38 And it came about, when he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer put him to death with the sword, and they went in flight into the land of Ararat. And Esar-haddon, his son, became king in his place.
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One day when he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, two of his sons, Adrammelech and Sharezer, killed him with their swords and then escaped to the land of Ararat. Another of his sons, Esarhaddon, succeeded him as emperor.
The Bible in Basic English is in the public domain.
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.