When king Hezekiah heard this, he tore his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of Allah. 2He sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Shaya the prophet, Ibn Amoz. 3They 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 birth, but there is no strength to bring them forth. 4It may be that Allah your God will hear all the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master has sent to defy the living God, and will rebuke the words which Allah your God has heard. Therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left. 5So the servants of king Hezekiah came to Shaya. 6Shaya said to them, Thus shall you tell your master, Thus says Allah, Do not be afraid of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. 7Behold, I will put a spirit in him, and he shall hear news, and shall return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land. 8So Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria battling against Libnah; for he had heard that the king had departed from Lachish. 9When the king of Assyria heard a report about Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, Behold, he has come out to fight against you, he sent messengers again to Hezekiah, saying, 10Thus shall you speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. 11Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly: and shall you be delivered? 12Have the gods of the nations delivered them, which my fathers have destroyed, Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden that were in Telassar? 13Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivvah? 14Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of Allah, and spread it before Allah. 15Hezekiah prayed before Allah, and said, Allah, the God of Israel, who sits above the karubin, you are God, even you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. 16Incline your ear, Allah, and hear; open your eyes, Allah, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, with which he has sent to defy the living God. 17Truly, Allah, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands, 18and 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. 19Now therefore, Allah our God, save us, I beg you, out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you Allah, are God alone. 20Then Shaya Ibn Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus says Allah, the God of Israel, Because you have prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria, I have heard you. 21This is the word that Allah has spoken concerning him: The virgin daughter of Al-Quds has despised you and ridiculed you; the daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head at you. 22Whom have you defied and blasphemed? Against whom have you exalted your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? Even against the Holy One of Israel. 23By your messengers you have defied the Lord, and have said, With the multitude of my chariots have I come up to the height of the mountains, to the utmost heights of Lebanon; and I will cut down its tall cedars, and its choice fir trees; and I will enter into its furthest parts, its fruitful forest. 24I have dug and drunk strange waters, and with the sole of my feet I have dried up all the rivers of Egypt. 25Haven’t you heard how I did it long ago, and formed it in ancient times? Now I have brought it to pass, that it should be yours to lay waste fortified cities into ruinous heaps. 26Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, they were dismayed and confounded; they were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the housetops, and as grain blasted before it is grown up. 27But I know where you live, and when you come and go, and how you rage against me. 28Because of your raging against me, and because your arrogance has come up into my ears, I will put my hook in your nose, and my bridle in your lips, and I will send you back the way you came. 29This shall be the sign to you: This year you will eat that which grows by itself, and in the second year that which springs from that; but in the third year sow and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit. 30The remnant of the house of Judah that has escaped shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward. 31For out of Jerusalem a remnant shall go forth, and out of Al-Quds those who shall escape: the zeal of Allah shall perform this. 32Therefore thus says Allah concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come to this city, nor shoot an arrow there, neither shall he come before it with shield, nor build a siege ramp against it. 33He shall return by the way he came, and he shall not come to this city, says Allah. 34For I will defend this city to save it for my own sake, and for my servant Dawud’s sake. 35It happened that night, that the angel of Allah went forth, and struck in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred eighty-five thousand: and when people arose early in the morning, behold, there were all the dead bodies. 36So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and lived at Nineveh. 37It happened, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword: and they escaped into the land of Ararat. Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.