“Give us advice, make a decision;
Cast your shadow like night at high noon;
Hide the outcasts, do not betray the fugitive.

“I will bring forth offspring from Jacob,
And an heir of My mountains from Judah;
Even My chosen ones shall inherit it,
And My servants will dwell there.

O Lord our God, other masters besides You have ruled us;
But through You alone we confess Your name.

It will not be quenched night or day;
Its smoke will go up forever.
From generation to generation it will be desolate;
None will pass through it forever and ever.

He enters into peace;
They rest in their beds,
Each one who walked in his upright way.

and the remainder of the number of bowmen, the mighty men of the sons of Kedar, will be few; for the Lord God of Israel has spoken.”

Now Isaiah had said, “Let them take a cake of figs and apply it to the boil, that he may recover.”

The bed is too short on which to stretch out,
And the blanket is too small to wrap oneself in.

“If anyone fiercely assails you it will not be from Me.
Whoever assails you will fall because of you.

But this is a people plundered and despoiled;
All of them are trapped in caves,
Or are hidden away in prisons;
They have become a prey with none to deliver them,
And a spoil, with none to say, “Give them back!”

Then you counted the houses of Jerusalem
And tore down houses to fortify the wall.

“I will depose you from your office,
And I will pull you down from your station.

A people who continually provoke Me to My face,
Offering sacrifices in gardens and burning incense on bricks;

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.

“His rock will pass away because of panic,
And his princes will be terrified at the standard,”
Declares the Lord, whose fire is in Zion and whose furnace is in Jerusalem.

“The Lord will surely save me;
So we will play my songs on stringed instruments
All the days of our life at the house of the Lord.”

Then the eyes of those who see will not be blinded,
And the ears of those who hear will listen.

“Let the outcasts of Moab stay with you;
Be a hiding place to them from the destroyer.”
For the extortioner has come to an end, destruction has ceased,
Oppressors have completely disappeared from the land.

“Moreover, I will make your battlements of rubies,
And your gates of crystal,
And your entire wall of precious stones.

so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Cush, young and old, naked and barefoot with buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.

“You who are far away, hear what I have done;
And you who are near, acknowledge My might.”

And the fishermen will lament,
And all those who cast a line into the Nile will mourn,
And those who spread nets on the waters will pine away.

“For He has brought low those who dwell on high, the unassailable city;
He lays it low, He lays it low to the ground, He casts it to the dust.

Then your choicest valleys were full of chariots,
And the horsemen took up fixed positions at the gate.

Does the farmer plow continually to plant seed?
Does he continually turn and harrow the ground?

“Those who err in mind will know the truth,
And those who criticize will accept instruction.

And I will clothe him with your tunic
And tie your sash securely about him.
I will entrust him with your authority,
And he will become a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah.

Elam took up the quiver
With the chariots, infantry and horsemen;
And Kir uncovered the shield.

“For the moth will eat them like a garment,
And the grub will eat them like wool.
But My righteousness will be forever,
And My salvation to all generations.”

“For the day of vengeance was in My heart,
And My year of redemption has come.

For this reason my loins are full of anguish;
Pains have seized me like the pains of a woman in labor.
I am so bewildered I cannot hear, so terrified I cannot see.

“As often as it passes through, it will seize you;
For morning after morning it will pass through, anytime during the day or night,
And it will be sheer terror to understand what it means.”

The land of Judah will become a terror to Egypt; everyone to whom it is mentioned will be in dread of it, because of the purpose of the Lord of hosts which He is purposing against them.

“Come,” they say, “let us get wine, and let us drink heavily of strong drink;
And tomorrow will be like today, only more so.”

“Through your servants you have reproached the Lord,
And you have said, ‘With my many chariots I came up to the heights of the mountains,
To the remotest parts of Lebanon;
And I cut down its tall cedars and its choice cypresses.
And I will go to its highest peak, its thickest forest.

For the ruthless will come to an end and the scorner will be finished,
Indeed all who are intent on doing evil will be cut off;

In their streets they have girded themselves with sackcloth;
On their housetops and in their squares
Everyone is wailing, dissolved in tears.

‘What right do you have here,
And whom do you have here,
That you have hewn a tomb for yourself here,
You who hew a tomb on the height,
You who carve a resting place for yourself in the rock?

They said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah, ‘This day is a day of distress, rebuke and rejection; for children have come to birth, and there is no strength to deliver.

“This shall be the sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do this thing that He has spoken:

“A voice of uproar from the city, a voice from the temple,
The voice of the Lord who is rendering recompense to His enemies.

For the cry of distress has gone around the territory of Moab,
Its wail goes as far as Eglaim and its wailing even to Beer-elim.

“Because of the iniquity of his unjust gain I was angry and struck him;
I hid My face and was angry,
And he went on turning away, in the way of his heart.

“Get out of the way, turn aside from the path,
Let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.”

“I, the Lord, am its keeper;
I water it every moment.
So that no one will damage it,
I guard it night and day.

Then Rabshakeh returned and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah, for he had heard that the king had left Lachish.

“For their princes are at Zoan
And their ambassadors arrive at Hanes.

“Whom have you reproached and blasphemed?
And against whom have you raised your voice
And haughtily lifted up your eyes?
Against the Holy One of Israel!

And you made a reservoir between the two walls
For the waters of the old pool.
But you did not depend on Him who made it,
Nor did you take into consideration Him who planned it long ago.

‘And some of your sons who will issue from you, whom you will beget, will be taken away, and they will become officials in the palace of the king of Babylon.’”

And he will spread out his hands in the middle of it
As a swimmer spreads out his hands to swim,
But the Lord will lay low his pride together with the trickery of his hands.

Isaiah said to them, “Thus you shall 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 blasphemed Me.

Then their offspring will be known among the nations,
And their descendants in the midst of the peoples.
All who see them will recognize them
Because they are the offspring whom the Lord has blessed.

“Behold, they have become like stubble,
Fire burns them;
They cannot deliver themselves from the power of the flame;
There will be no coal to warm by
Nor a fire to sit before!

“I was angry with My people,
I profaned My heritage
And gave them into your hand.
You did not show mercy to them,
On the aged you made your yoke very heavy.

The bulrushes by the Nile, by the edge of the Nile
And all the sown fields by the Nile
Will become dry, be driven away, and be no more.

“The children of whom you were bereaved will yet say in your ears,
‘The place is too cramped for me;
Make room for me that I may live here.’

“Moreover, I will deliver the Egyptians into the hand of a cruel master,
And a mighty king will rule over them,” declares the Lord God of hosts.

All your rulers have fled together,
And have been captured without the bow;
All of you who were found were taken captive together,
Though they had fled far away.

My mind reels, horror overwhelms me;
The twilight I longed for has been turned for me into trembling.

Who gave Jacob up for spoil, and Israel to plunderers?
Was it not the Lord, against whom we have sinned,
And in whose ways they were not willing to walk,
And whose law they did not obey?

They will be turned back and be utterly put to shame,
Who trust in idols,
Who say to molten images,
“You are our gods.”

“Behold, all of them are false;
Their works are worthless,
Their molten images are wind and emptiness.

Also the oxen and the donkeys which work the ground will eat salted fodder, which has been winnowed with shovel and fork.

But the rest of it he makes into a god, his graven image. He falls down before it and worships; he also prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god.”

I will camp against you encircling you,
And I will set siegeworks against you,
And I will raise up battle towers against you.

Who caused His glorious arm to go at the right hand of Moses,
Who divided the waters before them to make for Himself an everlasting name,

And they will call them, “The holy people,
The redeemed of the Lord”;
And you will be called, “Sought out, a city not forsaken.”

We grope along the wall like blind men,
We grope like those who have no eyes;
We stumble at midday as in the twilight,
Among those who are vigorous we are like dead men.

“I have aroused one from the north, and he has come;
From the rising of the sun he will call on My name;
And he will come upon rulers as upon mortar,
Even as the potter treads clay.”

For before the harvest, as soon as the bud blossoms
And the flower becomes a ripening grape,
Then He will cut off the sprigs with pruning knives
And remove and cut away the spreading branches.

How blessed will you be, you who sow beside all waters,
Who let out freely the ox and the donkey.

He who is too impoverished for such an offering
Selects a tree that does not rot;
He seeks out for himself a skillful craftsman
To prepare an idol that will not totter.

and said, “Remember now, O Lord, I beseech You, how I have walked before You in truth and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in Your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

Then you will see this, and your heart will be glad,
And your bones will flourish like the new grass;
And the hand of the Lord will be made known to His servants,
But He will be indignant toward His enemies.

And the fading flower of its glorious beauty,
Which is at the head of the fertile valley,
Will be like the first-ripe fig prior to summer,
Which one sees,
And as soon as it is in his hand,
He swallows it.

We were pregnant, we writhed in labor,
We gave birth, as it seems, only to wind.
We could not accomplish deliverance for the earth,
Nor were inhabitants of the world born.

Behold, the Lord God helps Me;
Who is he who condemns Me?
Behold, they will all wear out like a garment;
The moth will eat them.

When You did awesome things which we did not expect,
You came down, the mountains quaked at Your presence.

For thus it will be in the midst of the earth among the peoples,
As the shaking of an olive tree,
As the gleanings when the grape harvest is over.

Thus says your Lord, the Lord, even your God
Who contends for His people,
“Behold, I have taken out of your hand the cup of reeling,
The chalice of My anger;
You will never drink it again.

In the day that you plant it you carefully fence it in,
And in the morning you bring your seed to blossom;
But the harvest will be a heap
In a day of sickliness and incurable pain.

“So I will pollute the princes of the sanctuary,
And I will consign Jacob to the ban and Israel to revilement.

Hezekiah was pleased, and showed them all his treasure house, the silver and the gold and the spices and the precious oil and his whole armory and all that was found in his treasuries. There was nothing in his house nor in all his dominion that Hezekiah did not show them.

That you may nurse and be satisfied with her comforting breasts,
That you may suck and be delighted with her bountiful bosom.”

You contended with them by banishing them, by driving them away.
With His fierce wind He has expelled them on the day of the east wind.

That they may see and recognize,
And consider and gain insight as well,
That the hand of the Lord has done this,
And the Holy One of Israel has created it.

I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city.”’

And you saw that the breaches
In the wall of the city of David were many;
And you collected the waters of the lower pool.

Then they will be dismayed and ashamed because of Cush their hope and Egypt their boast.

“O Lord, by these things men live,
And in all these is the life of my spirit;
O restore me to health and let me live!

In that day their strong cities will be like forsaken places in the forest,
Or like branches which they abandoned before the sons of Israel;
And the land will be a desolation.

Then it becomes something for a man to burn, so he takes one of them and warms himself; he also makes a fire to bake bread. He also makes a god and worships it; he makes it a graven image and falls down before it.

Our Redeemer, the Lord of hosts is His name,
The Holy One of Israel.

“I looked, and there was no one to help,
And I was astonished and there was no one to uphold;
So My own arm brought salvation to Me,
And My wrath upheld Me.

“Assemble, all of you, and listen!
Who among them has declared these things?
The Lord loves him; he will carry out His good pleasure on Babylon,
And His arm will be against the Chaldeans.

Take your harp, walk about the city,
O forgotten harlot;
Pluck the strings skillfully, sing many songs,
That you may be remembered.

“Therefore, thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, ‘He will not come to this city or shoot an arrow there; and he will not come before it with a shield, or throw up a siege ramp against it.

For the fortified city is isolated,
A homestead forlorn and forsaken like the desert;
There the calf will graze,
And there it will lie down and feed on its branches.

It will come about at the end of seventy years that the Lord will visit Tyre. Then she will go back to her harlot’s wages and will play the harlot with all the kingdoms on the face of the earth.

Perhaps the Lord your God will hear the words of Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to reproach the living God, and will rebuke the words which the Lord your God has heard. Therefore, offer a prayer for the remnant that is left.’”

For thus says the Lord God, “My people went down at the first into Egypt to reside there; then the Assyrian oppressed them without cause.

Therefore I declared them to you long ago,
Before they took place I proclaimed them to you,
So that you would not say, ‘My idol has done them,
And my graven image and my molten image have commanded them.’

For all the tables are full of filthy vomit, without a single clean place.

“Your nakedness will be uncovered,
Your shame also will be exposed;
I will take vengeance and will not spare a man.”

“Put Me in remembrance, let us argue our case together;
State your cause, that you may be proved right.

Now in that day the glory of Jacob will fade,
And the fatness of his flesh will become lean.

“You have not brought to Me the sheep of your burnt offerings,
Nor have you honored Me with your sacrifices.
I have not burdened you with offerings,
Nor wearied you with incense.

“Behold, My servants will shout joyfully with a glad heart,
But you will cry out with a heavy heart,
And you will wail with a broken spirit.

And roll you tightly like a ball,
To be cast into a vast country;
There you will die
And there your splendid chariots will be,
You shame of your master’s house.’

No one recalls, nor is there knowledge or understanding to say, “I have burned half of it in the fire and also have baked bread over its coals. I roast meat and eat it. Then I make the rest of it into an abomination, I fall down before a block of wood!”

Who has fashioned a god or cast an idol to no profit?

When its limbs are dry, they are broken off;
Women come and make a fire with them,
For they are not a people of discernment,
Therefore their Maker will not have compassion on them.
And their Creator will not be gracious to them.

Behold, their brave men cry in the streets,
The ambassadors of peace weep bitterly.

For the waters of Nimrim are desolate.
Surely the grass is withered, the tender grass died out,
There is no green thing.

Pass over to Tarshish;
Wail, O inhabitants of the coastland.

They did not thirst when He led them through the deserts.
He made the water flow out of the rock for them;
He split the rock and the water gushed forth.

“Like a shepherd’s tent my dwelling is pulled up and removed from me;
As a weaver I rolled up my life.
He cuts me off from the loom;
From day until night You make an end of me.

But there the majestic One, the Lord, will be for us
A place of rivers and wide canals
On which no boat with oars will go,
And on which no mighty ship will pass—

“Your gates will be open continually;
They will not be closed day or night,
So that men may bring to you the wealth of the nations,
With their kings led in procession.

Within a year and a few days
You will be troubled, O complacent daughters;
For the vintage is ended,
And the fruit gathering will not come.

One thousand will flee at the threat of one man;
You will flee at the threat of five,
Until you are left as a flag on a mountain top
And as a signal on a hill.

Therefore this iniquity will be to you
Like a breach about to fall,
A bulge in a high wall,
Whose collapse comes suddenly in an instant,

As for a rogue, his weapons are evil;
He devises wicked schemes
To destroy the afflicted with slander,
Even though the needy one speaks what is right.

“I will lay waste the mountains and hills
And wither all their vegetation;
I will make the rivers into coastlands
And dry up the ponds.

He it is who reduces rulers to nothing,
Who makes the judges of the earth meaningless.

And the Assyrian will fall by a sword not of man,
And a sword not of man will devour him.
So he will not escape the sword,
And his young men will become forced laborers.

“But evil will come on you
Which you will not know how to charm away;
And disaster will fall on you
For which you cannot atone;
And destruction about which you do not know
Will come on you suddenly.

With whom did He consult and who gave Him understanding?
And who taught Him in the path of justice and taught Him knowledge
And informed Him of the way of understanding?

Each one helps his neighbor
And says to his brother, “Be strong!”

“In the Lord all the offspring of Israel
Will be justified and will glory.”

“I have no wrath.
Should someone give Me briars and thorns in battle,
Then I would step on them, I would burn them completely.

“Then this shall be the sign for you: you will eat this year what grows of itself, in the second year what springs from the same, and in the third year sow, reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

As the cattle which go down into the valley,
The Spirit of the Lord gave them rest.
So You led Your people,
To make for Yourself a glorious name.

“It is I who says to the depth of the sea, ‘Be dried up!’
And I will make your rivers dry.

You have seen many things, but you do not observe them;
Your ears are open, but none hears.

The watchman says,
“Morning comes but also night.
If you would inquire, inquire;
Come back again.”

The highways are desolate, the traveler has ceased,
He has broken the covenant, he has despised the cities,
He has no regard for man.

“They will not labor in vain,
Or bear children for calamity;
For they are the offspring of those blessed by the Lord,
And their descendants with them.

‘Behold, the days are coming when all that is in your house and all that your fathers have laid up in store to this day will be carried to Babylon; nothing will be left,’ says the Lord.

For the land of my people in which thorns and briars shall come up;
Yea, for all the joyful houses and for the jubilant city.

Then Rabshakeh said to them, “Say now to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, “What is this confidence that you have?

“The peoples will be burned to lime,
Like cut thorns which are burned in the fire.

“Those who lavish gold from the purse
And weigh silver on the scale
Hire a goldsmith, and he makes it into a god;
They bow down, indeed they worship it.

For his God instructs and teaches him properly.

His breath is like an overflowing torrent,
Which reaches to the neck,
To shake the nations back and forth in a sieve,
And to put in the jaws of the peoples the bridle which leads to ruin.

“For your waste and desolate places and your destroyed land—
Surely now you will be too cramped for the inhabitants,
And those who swallowed you will be far away.

Wail, O ships of Tarshish,
For your stronghold is destroyed.

The Lord of hosts has planned it, to defile the pride of all beauty,
To despise all the honored of the earth.

I will also take some of them for priests and for Levites,” says the Lord.

Who has declared this from the beginning, that we might know?
Or from former times, that we may say, “He is right!”?
Surely there was no one who declared,
Surely there was no one who proclaimed,
Surely there was no one who heard your words.

Both their own iniquities and the iniquities of their fathers together,” says the Lord.
“Because they have burned incense on the mountains
And scorned Me on the hills,
Therefore I will measure their former work into their bosom.”

“Behold, it is written before Me,
I will not keep silent, but I will repay;
I will even repay into their bosom,

Now, O Lord our God, deliver us from his hand that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone, Lord, are God.”

So their slain will be thrown out,
And their corpses will give off their stench,
And the mountains will be drenched with their blood.

“Woe to him who says to a father, ‘What are you begetting?’
Or to a woman, ‘To what are you giving birth?’”

Your spoil is gathered as the caterpillar gathers;
As locusts rushing about men rush about on it.

And He removed the defense of Judah.
In that day you depended on the weapons of the house of the forest,

“Therefore the safety of Pharaoh will be your shame
And the shelter in the shadow of Egypt, your humiliation.

For they have fled from the swords,
From the drawn sword, and from the bent bow
And from the press of battle.

The coastlands have seen and are afraid;
The ends of the earth tremble;
They have drawn near and have come.

Her gain and her harlot’s wages will be set apart to the Lord; it will not be stored up or hoarded, but her gain will become sufficient food and choice attire for those who dwell in the presence of the Lord.

Return to Him from whom you have deeply defected, O sons of Israel.

“For they call themselves after the holy city
And lean on the God of Israel;
The Lord of hosts is His name.

As fire kindles the brushwood, as fire causes water to boil—
To make Your name known to Your adversaries,
That the nations may tremble at Your presence!

“Have you not heard?
Long ago I did it,
From ancient times I planned it.
Now I have brought it to pass,
That you should turn fortified cities into ruinous heaps.

Their webs will not become clothing,
Nor will they cover themselves with their works;
Their works are works of iniquity,
And an act of violence is in their hands.

Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? And when have they delivered Samaria from my hand?

Your sons have fainted,
They lie helpless at the head of every street,
Like an antelope in a net,
Full of the wrath of the Lord,
The rebuke of your God.

“Of whom were you worried and fearful
When you lied, and did not remember Me
Nor give Me a thought?
Was I not silent even for a long time
So you do not fear Me?

The tree snake will make its nest and lay eggs there,
And it will hatch and gather them under its protection.
Yes, the hawks will be gathered there,
Every one with its kind.

Its nobles—there is no one there
Whom they may proclaim king—
And all its princes will be nothing.

“Then you will say in your heart,
‘Who has begotten these for me,
Since I have been bereaved of my children
And am barren, an exile and a wanderer?
And who has reared these?
Behold, I was left alone;
From where did these come?’”

“Listen to Me, you stubborn-minded,
Who are far from righteousness.

When the report reaches Egypt,
They will be in anguish at the report of Tyre.

No lion will be there,
Nor will any vicious beast go up on it;
These will not be found there.
But the redeemed will walk there,

For out of Jerusalem will go forth a remnant and out of Mount Zion survivors. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.”’

“You have conceived chaff, you will give birth to stubble;
My breath will consume you like a fire.

“Because of your raging against Me
And because your arrogance has come up to My ears,
Therefore I will put My hook in your nose
And My bridle in your lips,
And I will turn you back by the way which you came.

Well then, where are your wise men?
Please let them tell you,
And let them understand what the Lord of hosts
Has purposed against Egypt.

“Upon a high and lofty mountain
You have made your bed.
You also went up there to offer sacrifice.

“Among the smooth stones of the ravine
Is your portion, they are your lot;
Even to them you have poured out a drink offering,
You have made a grain offering.
Shall I relent concerning these things?

Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the Lord which you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “For there will be peace and truth in my days.”

“Thus you shall say to Hezekiah king of Judah, ‘Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, “Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”

Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord,

There is an outcry in the streets concerning the wine;
All joy turns to gloom.
The gaiety of the earth is banished.

Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him the words of Rabshakeh.

The mind of the hasty will discern the truth,
And the tongue of the stammerers will hasten to speak clearly.

“I clothe the heavens with blackness
And make sackcloth their covering.”

“Formerly I said to Zion, ‘Behold, here they are.’
And to Jerusalem, ‘I will give a messenger of good news.’

A spirit of justice for him who sits in judgment,
A strength to those who repel the onslaught at the gate.

So He poured out on him the heat of His anger
And the fierceness of battle;
And it set him aflame all around,
Yet he did not recognize it;
And it burned him, but he paid no attention.

“I will declare your righteousness and your deeds,
But they will not profit you.

“Your builders hurry;
Your destroyers and devastators
Will depart from you.

“I will make all My mountains a road,
And My highways will be raised up.

And the multitude of all the nations who wage war against Ariel,
Even all who wage war against her and her stronghold, and who distress her,
Will be like a dream, a vision of the night.

So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah.

“Against whom do you jest?
Against whom do you open wide your mouth
And stick out your tongue?
Are you not children of rebellion,
Offspring of deceit,

“You were tired out by the length of your road,
Yet you did not say, ‘It is hopeless.’
You found renewed strength,
Therefore you did not faint.

All of us growl like bears,
And moan sadly like doves;
We hope for justice, but there is none,
For salvation, but it is far from us.

Behold, I will put a spirit in him so that he will hear a rumor and return to his own land. And I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.”’”

Your heart will meditate on terror:
“Where is he who counts?
Where is he who weighs?
Where is he who counts the towers?”

We have become like those over whom You have never ruled,
Like those who were not called by Your name.

“Your first forefather sinned,
And your spokesmen have transgressed against Me.

Your tackle hangs slack;
It cannot hold the base of its mast firmly,
Nor spread out the sail.
Then the prey of an abundant spoil will be divided;
The lame will take the plunder.

Be ashamed, O Sidon;
For the sea speaks, the stronghold of the sea, saying,
“I have neither travailed nor given birth,
I have neither brought up young men nor reared virgins.”

“Therefore their inhabitants were short of strength,
They were dismayed and put to shame;
They were as the vegetation of the field and as the green herb,
As grass on the housetops is scorched before it is grown up.

“But when I look, there is no one,
And there is no counselor among them
Who, if I ask, can give an answer.

I said, “I will not see the Lord,
The Lord in the land of the living;
I will look on man no more among the inhabitants of the world.

Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, and of Hena and Ivvah?’”

Scarcely have they been planted,
Scarcely have they been sown,
Scarcely has their stock taken root in the earth,
But He merely blows on them, and they wither,
And the storm carries them away like stubble.

The exile will soon be set free, and will not die in the dungeon, nor will his bread be lacking.

And give Him no rest until He establishes
And makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth.

“I composed my soul until morning.
Like a lion—so He breaks all my bones,
From day until night You make an end of me.

Do not be angry beyond measure, O Lord,
Nor remember iniquity forever;
Behold, look now, all of us are Your people.

and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. So they have destroyed them.

Even Lebanon is not enough to burn,
Nor its beasts enough for a burnt offering.

“Everyone will be ashamed because of a people who cannot profit them,
Who are not for help or profit, but for shame and also for reproach.”

‘Behold, the Lord is about to hurl you headlong, O man.
And He is about to grasp you firmly

‘I dug wells and drank waters,
And with the sole of my feet I dried up
All the rivers of Egypt.’

Who brings forth the chariot and the horse,
The army and the mighty man
(They will lie down together and not rise again;
They have been quenched and extinguished like a wick):

Incline Your ear, O Lord, and hear; open Your eyes, O Lord, and see; and listen to all the words of Sennacherib, who sent them to reproach the living God.

“I will put it into the hand of your tormentors,
Who have said to you, ‘Lie down that we may walk over you.’
You have even made your back like the ground
And like the street for those who walk over it.”

They do not drink wine with song;
Strong drink is bitter to those who drink it.

They will be put to shame and even humiliated, all of them;
The manufacturers of idols will go away together in humiliation.

Therefore, please hear this, you afflicted,
Who are drunk, but not with wine:

So the inhabitants of this coastland will say in that day, ‘Behold, such is our hope, where we fled for help to be delivered from the king of Assyria; and we, how shall we escape?’”

“The foot will trample it,
The feet of the afflicted, the steps of the helpless.”

These two things have befallen you;
Who will mourn for you?
The devastation and destruction, famine and sword;
How shall I comfort you?

This is the word which the Lord spoke earlier concerning Moab.

Then Rabshakeh stood and cried with a loud voice in Judean and said, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria.

The unassailable fortifications of your walls He will bring down,
Lay low and cast to the ground, even to the dust.

Half of it he burns in the fire; over this half he eats meat as he roasts a roast and is satisfied. He also warms himself and says, “Aha! I am warm, I have seen the fire.”

Beware that Hezekiah does not mislead you, saying, “The Lord will deliver us.” Has any one of the gods of the nations delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?

And you said, “No, for we will flee on horses,”
Therefore you shall flee!
“And we will ride on swift horses,”
Therefore those who pursue you shall be swift.

There is none to guide her among all the sons she has borne,
Nor is there one to take her by the hand among all the sons she has reared.

I say, ‘Your counsel and strength for the war are only empty words.’ Now on whom do you rely, that you have rebelled against me?

Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have devastated all the countries and their lands,

Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine,

Now therefore, come make a bargain with my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them.

‘For I will defend this city to save it for My own sake and for My servant David’s sake.’”

You will no longer see a fierce people,
A people of unintelligible speech which no one comprehends,
Of a stammering tongue which no one understands.

So it will come about when Moab presents himself,
When he wearies himself upon his high place
And comes to his sanctuary to pray,
That he will not prevail.

Our holy and beautiful house,
Where our fathers praised You,
Has been burned by fire;
And all our precious things have become a ruin.

Behold, you are of no account,
And your work amounts to nothing;
He who chooses you is an abomination.

He has stretched His hand out over the sea,
He has made the kingdoms tremble;
The Lord has given a command concerning Canaan to demolish its strongholds.

They will be left together for mountain birds of prey,
And for the beasts of the earth;
And the birds of prey will spend the summer feeding on them,
And all the beasts of the earth will spend harvest time on them.

“You will seek those who quarrel with you, but will not find them,
Those who war with you will be as nothing and non-existent.

You have increased the nation, O Lord,
You have increased the nation, You are glorified;
You have extended all the borders of the land.

Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord of hosts,

Grain for bread is crushed,
Indeed, he does not continue to thresh it forever.
Because the wheel of his cart and his horses eventually damage it,
He does not thresh it longer.

Your holy people possessed Your sanctuary for a little while,
Our adversaries have trodden it down.

Do not listen to Hezekiah,’ for thus says the king of Assyria, ‘Make your peace with me and come out to me, and eat each of his vine and each of his fig tree and drink each of the waters of his own cistern,

“I trod down the peoples in My anger
And made them drunk in My wrath,
And I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.”

Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands, destroying them completely. So will you be spared?

Your holy cities have become a wilderness,
Zion has become a wilderness,
Jerusalem a desolation.

“So have those become to you with whom you have labored,
Who have trafficked with you from your youth;
Each has wandered in his own way;
There is none to save you.

Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah and said to him, “What did these men say, and from where have they come to you?” And Hezekiah said, “They have come to me from a far country, from Babylon.”

I have commanded My consecrated ones,
I have even called My mighty warriors,
My proudly exulting ones,
To execute My anger.

“What shall I say?
For He has spoken to me, and He Himself has done it;
I will wander about all my years because of the bitterness of my soul.

“They are created now and not long ago;
And before today you have not heard them,
So that you will not say, ‘Behold, I knew them.’

There will be no work for Egypt
Which its head or tail, its palm branch or bulrush, may do.

“They lift it upon the shoulder and carry it;
They set it in its place and it stands there.
It does not move from its place.
Though one may cry to it, it cannot answer;
It cannot deliver him from his distress.

He has cast the lot for them,
And His hand has divided it to them by line.
They shall possess it forever;
From generation to generation they will dwell in it.

until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards.

But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the Lord our God,’ is it not He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar’?

“I, even I, have spoken; indeed I have called him,
I have brought him, and He will make his ways successful.

They stooped over, they have bowed down together;
They could not rescue the burden,
But have themselves gone into captivity.

“But I know your sitting down
And your going out and your coming in
And your raging against Me.

Who led them through the depths?
Like the horse in the wilderness, they did not stumble;

At the sound of the tumult peoples flee;
At the lifting up of Yourself nations disperse.

Behold, all his companions will be put to shame, for the craftsmen themselves are mere men. Let them all assemble themselves, let them stand up, let them tremble, let them together be put to shame.

Then Hezekiah had said, “What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the Lord?”

nor let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying, “The Lord will surely deliver us, this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”

Then the word of the Lord came to Isaiah, saying,

Hezekiah prayed to the Lord saying,

“Your descendants would have been like the sand,
And your offspring like its grains;
Their name would never be cut off or destroyed from My presence.”

And it will hail when the forest comes down,
And the city will be utterly laid low.

Desolation is left in the city
And the gate is battered to ruins.

Is this your jubilant city,
Whose origin is from antiquity,
Whose feet used to carry her to colonize distant places?

How then can you repulse one official of the least of my master’s servants and rely on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?

“He pursues them, passing on in safety,
By a way he had not been traversing with his feet.

But those who garner it will eat it and praise the Lord;
And those who gather it will drink it in the courts of My sanctuary.

Will You restrain Yourself at these things, O Lord?
Will You keep silent and afflict us beyond measure?

Have I now come up without the Lord’s approval against this land to destroy it? The Lord said to me, ‘Go up against this land and destroy it.’”’”

But they were silent and answered him not a word; for the king’s commandment was, “Do not answer him.”

For in that day every man will cast away his silver idols and his gold idols, which your sinful hands have made for you as a sin.

Like the striking of Him who has struck them, has He struck them?
Or like the slaughter of His slain, have they been slain?

Who among all the gods of these lands have delivered their land from my hand, that the Lord would deliver Jerusalem from my hand?’”

Thus says the king, ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you;

He said, “What have they seen in your house?” So Hezekiah answered, “They have seen all that is in my house; there is nothing among my treasuries that I have not shown them.”

By the way that he came, by the same he will return, and he will not come to this city,’ declares the Lord.