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The Fourth
Book of Kings 19
And when king Ezechias heard these words, he rent his
garments, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went
into the house of the Lord.
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,
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.
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.
So the servants of king Ezechias came to Isaias.
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.
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.
And Rabsaces returned, and found the king of the Assyrians
besieging Lobna: for he had heard that he was departed
from Lachis.
And when he heard of Theraca king of Ethiopia: Behold,
he is come out to fight with thee: and was going against
him, he sent messengers to Ezechias, saying:
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.
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?
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?
Where is the king of Emath, and the king of Arphad,
and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Ana and of
Ava?
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,
And he prayed in his sight, saying: O Lord God of Israel,
who sitteth upon the cherubims, thou alone art the God
of all the kings of the earth: thou madest heaven and
earth:
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.
Of a truth, O Lord, the kings of the Assyrians have
destroyed nations, and the lands of them all.
And they have cast their gods into the fire: for they
were not Rods, but the works of men's hands of wood
and stone, and they destroyed them.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 ruin:
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.
Thy dwelling and thy going out, and thy coming in, and
thy way I knew before, and thy rage against me.
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.
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.
And whatsoever shall be left of the house of Juda, shall
take root downward, and bear fruit upward.
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.
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.
By the way that he came, he shall return: and into this
city he shall not come, saith the Lord.
And I will protect this city, and will save it for my
own sake, and for David my servant's sake.
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.
And Sennacherib king of the Assyrians departing went
away, and he re- turned and abode in Ninive.
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. |
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