And there will be a highway from Assyria
For the remnant of His people who will be left,
Just as there was for Israel
In the day when they came up out of the land of Egypt.

In the year that King Ahaz [of Judah] died this [mournful, inspired] oracle (a burden to be carried) came:

In the year that the Tartan [the Assyrian commander in chief] came to Ashdod [in Philistia], when Sargon king of Assyria sent him and he fought against Ashdod and captured it,

And it came to pass that your choicest valleys were full of chariots,
And the horsemen took their fixed positions [in an offensive array] at the gate [of Jerusalem].

Your spoil [of Israel’s foe] is gathered [by the people of Jerusalem] as the caterpillar gathers;
As locusts swarming so people swarm on it.

Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and conquered them.

Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the [royal] household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recording historian, came out to [meet] him.

Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the household, and Shebna the scribe and Joah the son of Asaph, the recording historian, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn [in grief], and told him the words of the Rabshakeh [the Assyrian commander].

So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah.

“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.

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

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

And the angel of the Lord went out and struck 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians; and when the [surviving] men got up early the next morning, they saw all the dead.

In those days Hezekiah [king of Judah] became sick and was at the point of death. And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, came to him and said, “For the Lord says this, ‘Set your house in order and prepare a will, for you shall die; you will not live.’”

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

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

“I have declared the former things [which happened to Israel] in times past;
They went forth from My mouth and I proclaimed them;
Suddenly I acted, and they came to pass.

I have declared them to you long ago;
Before they came to pass I announced them to you,
So that you could not say, ‘My idol has done them,
And my carved image and my cast image have commanded them.’

“Why, when I came, was there no man [to greet Me]?
When I called, why was there no one to answer?
Is My hand really so short that it cannot redeem [My servants]?
Or have I no power to rescue?
Listen carefully, with My rebuke I dry up the sea,
I make the rivers into a desert;
Their fish stink because there is no water
And die of thirst.

“A multitude of camels [from the eastern trading tribes] will cover you [Jerusalem],
The young camels of Midian and Ephah;
All those from Sheba [who once came to trade] will come
Bringing gold and frankincense
And proclaiming the praises of the Lord.

When You did awesome and amazing things which we did not expect,
You came down [at Sinai]; the mountains quaked at Your presence.

“Before she (Zion) was in labor, she gave birth;
Before her labor pain came, she gave birth to a boy.