Ezechias is assured of God's help by Isaias the prophet. The king of the
Assyrians still threateneth and blasphemeth. Ezechias prayeth, and God
promiseth to protect Jerusalem. An angel destroyeth the army of the
Assyrians, their king returneth to Nineve, and is slain by his two sons.
19:1. And when king Ezechias heard these words, he rent his garments,
and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord.
19:2. And he sent Eliacim, who was over the house, and Sobna, the
scribe, and the ancients of the priests, covered with sackcloths, to
Isaias, the prophet, the son of Amos.
19:3. And they said to him: Thus saith Ezechias: This day is a day of
tribulation, and of rebuke, and of blasphemy: the children are come to
the birth, and the woman in travail hath not strength.
19:4. It may be the Lord, thy God, will hear all the words of Rabsaces,
whom the king of the Assyrians, his master, hath sent to reproach the
living God, and to reprove with words, which the Lord, thy God, hath
heard: and do thou offer prayer for the remnants that are found.
19:5. So the servants of king Ezechias came to Isaias.
19:6. And Isaias said to them: Thus shall you say to your master: Thus
saith the Lord: Be not afraid for the words which thou hast heard, with
which the servants of the king of the Assyrians have blasphemed me.
19:7. Behold I will send a spirit upon him, and he shall hear a message,
and shall return into his own country, and I will make him fall by the
sword in his own country.
19:8. And Rabsaces returned, and found the king of the Assyrians
besieging Lobna: for he had heard that he was departed from Lachis.
19:9. And when he heard of Tharaca, king of Ethiopia: Behold, he is come
out to fight with thee: and was going against him, he sent messengers to
Ezechias, saying:
19:10. Thus shall you say to Ezechias, king of Juda: Let not thy God
deceive thee, in whom thou trustest: and do not say: Jerusalem shall not
be delivered into the hands of the king of the Assyrians.
19:11. Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of the Assyrians have done
to all countries, how they have laid them waste: and canst thou alone be
delivered?
19:12. Have the gods of the nations delivered any of them, whom my
fathers have destroyed, to wit, Gozan, and Haran, and Reseph, and the
children of Eden, that were in Thelassar?
19:13. Where is the king of Emath, and the king of Arphad, and the king
of the city of Sepharvaim, and of Ana, and of Ava?
19:14. And when Ezechias had received the letter of the hand of the
messengers, and had read it, he went up to the house of the Lord, and
spread it before the Lord,
19:15. And he prayed in his sight, saying: O Lord God of Israel, who
sittest upon the cherubims, thou alone art the God of all the kings of
the earth: thou madest heaven and earth:
19:16. Incline thy ear, and hear: open, O Lord, thy eyes and see: and
hear all the words of Sennacherib, who hath sent to upbraid unto us the
living God.
19:17. Of a truth, O Lord, the kings of the Assyrians have destroyed
nations, and the lands of them all.
19:18. And they have cast their gods into the fire: for they were not
gods, but the work of men's hands, of wood and stone, and they destroyed
them.
19:19. Now therefore, O Lord our God, save us from his hand, that all
the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the Lord, the only God.
19:20. And Isaias, the son of Amos, sent to Ezechias, saying: Thus saith
the Lord, the God of Israel: I have heard the prayer thou hast made to
me concerning Sennacherib, king of the Assyrians.
19:21. This is the word that the Lord hath spoken of him: The virgin,
the daughter of Sion, hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn: the
daughter of Jerusalem hath wagged her head behind thy back.
19:22. Whom hast thou reproached, and whom hast thou blasphemed? against
whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thy eyes on high?
against the holy one of Israel.
19:23. By the hand of thy servants thou hast reproached the Lord, and
hast said: With the multitude of my chariots I have gone up to the
height of the mountains, to the top of Libanus, and have cut down its
tall cedars, and its choice fir trees. And I have entered into the
furthest parts thereof, and the forest of its Carmel.
Carmel... A pleasant fruitful hill in the forest. These expressions are
figurative, signifying under the names of mountains and forests, the
kings and provinces whom the Assyrians had triumphed over.
19:24. I have cut down, and I have drunk strange waters, and have dried
up with the soles of my feet all the shut up waters.
19:25. Hast thou not heard what I have done from the beginning? from the
days of old I have formed it, and now I have brought it to effect: that
fenced cities of fighting men should be turned to heaps of ruins:
I have formed it, etc... All thy exploits, in which thou takest pride,
are no more than what I have decreed; and are not to be ascribed to thy
wisdom or strength, but to my will and ordinance: who have given to thee
to take and destroy so many fenced cities, and to carry terror wherever
thou comest.-Ibid. Heaps of ruin... Literally ruin of the hills.
19:26. And the inhabitants of them were weak of hand, they trembled and
were confounded, they became like the grass of the field, and the green
herb on the tops of houses, which withered before it came to maturity.
19:27. Thy dwelling, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy way I
knew before, and thy rage against me.
19:28. Thou hast been mad against me, and thy pride hath come up to my
ears: therefore I will put a ring in thy nose, and a bit between thy
lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest.
19:29. And to thee, O Ezechias, this shall be a sign: Eat this year what
thou shalt find: and in the second year, such things as spring of
themselves: but in the third year sow and reap: plant vineyards, and eat
the fruit of them.
19:30. And whatsoever shall be left of the house of Juda, shall take
root downward, and bear fruit upward.
19:31. For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and that which
shall be saved out of mount Sion: the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do
this.
19:32. Wherefore thus saith the Lord concerning the king of the
Assyrians: He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow into it,
nor come before it with shield, nor cast a trench about it.
19:33. By the way that he came he shall return: and into this city he
shall not come, saith the Lord.
19:34. And I will protect this city, and will save it for my own sake,
and for David, my servant's sake.
19:35. And it came to pass that night, that an angel of the Lord came,
and slew in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five
thousand. And when he arose early in the morning, he saw all the bodies
of the dead.
19:36. And Sennacherib, king of the Assyrians, departing, went away, and
he returned and abode in Ninive.
19:37. And as he was worshipping in the temple of Nesroch, his god,
Adramelech and Sarasar, his sons, slew him with the sword, and they fled
into the land of the Armenians, and Asarhaddon, his son, reigned in his
stead.