_XIX.--SENNACHERIB._
1. Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus saith
the Lord God of Israel, that which thou hast prayed to me against
Sennacherib king of Assyria I have heard.
2. This is the word that the Lord hath spoken concerning him; The
virgin the daughter of Zion hath despised thee, and laughed thee to
scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee.
3. Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed? and against whom hast
thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thine eyes on high? even against
the Holy One of Israel.
4. By thy messengers thou hast reproached the Lord, and hast said, With
the multitude of my chariots, I am come up to the height of the
mountains, to the sides of Lebanon, and will cut down the tall
cedar-trees thereof, and the choice fir-trees thereof: and I will enter
into the lodgings of his borders, and into the forest of his Carmel.
5. I have digged and drunk strange waters, and with the sole of my
feet have I dried up all the rivers of besieged places.
6. Hast thou not heard long ago how I have done it, and of ancient
times that I have formed it? now have I brought it to pass, that thou
shouldest be to lay waste fenced cities into ruinous heaps.
7. Therefore 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 corn blasted before it be
grown up.
8. But I know thy abode, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy
rage against me.
9. Because thy rage against me and thy tumult is come up into mine
ears, therefore I will put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy
lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest.
10. And this shall be a sign unto thee, Ye shall eat this year such
things as grow of themselves, and in the second year that which
springeth of the same; and in the third year sow ye, and reap, and
plant vineyards, and eat the fruits thereof.
11. And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall yet
again take root downward, and bear fruit upward.
12. For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and they that
escape out of Mount Zion: the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this.
13. Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, He
shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come
before it with shield, nor cast a bank against it.
14. By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall
not come into this city, saith the Lord.
15. For I will defend this city, to save it, for mine own sake, and
for my servant David's sake.
16. And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went
out and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred fourscore and
five thousand; and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they
were all dead corpses.
17. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned,
and dwelt at Nineveh.
_II Kings, xix, 20-36._