3. They said to him, “This is what Hezekiah says: ‘Today is a day of distress, rebuke, and disgrace, for children have come to the point of birth, and there is no strength to deliver them.
4. Perhaps Yahweh your God will hear all the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria sent to mock the living God, and will rebuke him for the words that Yahweh your God has heard. Therefore offer a prayer for the surviving remnant.’ ”
5. So the servants of King Hezekiah went to Isaiah,
6. who said to them, “Tell your master this, ‘The Lord says: Don’t be afraid because of the words you have heard, which the king of Assyria’s attendants have blasphemed Me with.
7. I am about to put a spirit in him and he will hear a rumor and return to his own land, where I will cause him to fall by the sword.’ ”
8. When the Rabshakeh heard that the king of Assyria had left Lachish, he returned and found him fighting against Libnah.
9. The king had heard this about Tirhakah king of Cush: “He has set out to fight against you.” So when he heard this, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,
10. “Say this to Hezekiah king of Judah: ‘Don’t let your God, whom you trust, deceive you by promising that Jerusalem won’t be handed over to the king of Assyria.
11. Look, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the countries: they completely destroyed them. Will you be rescued?
12. Did the gods of the nations that my predecessors destroyed rescue them — Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the Edenites in Telassar?
13. Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, Hena, or Ivvah? ’ ”
14. Hezekiah took the letter from the messengers, read it, then went up to the Lord’s temple and spread it out before the Lord.
15. Then Hezekiah prayed to the Lord:
16. Lord of Hosts, God of Israel, who is enthroned above the cherubim, You are God — You alone — of all the kingdoms of the earth. You made the heavens and the earth.
17. Listen closely, Lord, and hear; open Your eyes, Lord, and see. Hear all the words that Sennacherib has sent to mock the living God.
18. Lord, it is true that the kings of Assyria have devastated all these countries and their lands.
19. They have thrown their gods into the fire, for they were not gods but made by human hands — wood and stone. So they have destroyed them.
20. Now, Lord our God, save us from his power so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are the Lord — You alone.