And when King Hezekiah heard this, he tore his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the LORD.
So the Rabshakeh returned and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah [a fortified city of Judah], for he had heard that the king had left Lachish.
Then Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it, and he went up to the house of the LORD and spread it out before the LORD.
Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent word to Hezekiah, saying, “For the LORD, the God of Israel says this, ‘Because you have prayed to Me about Sennacherib king of Assyria,
“She has shown contempt for you and mocked you,
The Virgin Daughter of Zion (Jerusalem);
She has shaken her head behind you,
The Daughter of Jerusalem!
“Whom have you taunted and blasphemed?
And against whom have you raised your voice
And haughtily lifted up your eyes?
Against the Holy One of Israel!
“Through your servants you have taunted and defied the Lord,
And you have said, ‘With my many chariots I have gone up to the heights of the mountains,
To the remotest parts of Lebanon.
I cut down its tallest cedars and its choicest cypress trees;
And I will go to its remotest height, its most luxuriant and thickest forest.
‘I dug wells and drank [foreign] waters,
And with the sole of my feet I dried up
All the canals [of the Nile] of Egypt.’
“Have you not heard [says the God of Israel]
That I did it long ago,
That I planned it in ancient times?
Now I have brought it to pass,
That you [king of Assyria] would [be My instrument to] turn fortified cities into ruinous heaps.
“Therefore their inhabitants had little power,
They were terrorized and shamed;
They were like the grass of the field and the green vegetation,
Like grass on the housetops and like a field [of grain] scorched before it is grown.
“But I know your sitting down
And your going out and your coming in [every detail of your life],
And your raging against Me.
“Therefore, the LORD says this concerning the king of Assyria, ‘He will not come into this city or shoot an arrow there, or come before it with shield, or raise an assault ramp against it.
Amplified Bible Copyright © 2015 by
The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, CA 90631 All rights reserved.
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