The Second Book Melakhim, starting at chapter 19
{19:1} It happened, when king Chizkiyahu heard it, that he tore his
clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house
of the LORD. {19:2} He sent Elyakim, who was over the household, and
Shevna the scribe, and the elders of the [1>]kohanim[<1], covered with
sackcloth, to Yeshaiyahu the prophet the son of Amotz. {19:3} They
said to him, Thus says Chizkiyahu, This day is a day of trouble, and
of rebuke, and of rejection; for the children are come to the birth,
and there is not strength to bring forth. {19:4} It may be the LORD
your God will hear all the words of Ravshakeh, whom the king of Ashur
his master has sent to defy the living God, and will rebuke the words
which the LORD your God has heard. Therefore lift up your prayer for
the remnant that is left. {19:5} So the servants of king Chizkiyahu
came to Yeshaiyahu. {19:6} Yeshaiyahu said to them, Thus shall you
tell your master, Thus says the LORD, Don't be afraid of the words
that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Ashur have
blasphemed me. {19:7} Behold, I will put a spirit in him, and he shall
hear news, and shall return to his own land; and I will cause him to
fall by the sword in his own land. {19:8} So Ravshakeh returned, and
found the king of Ashur warring against Livna; for he had heard that
he was departed from Lakhish. {19:9} When he heard say of Tirhakah
king of Kush, Behold, he is come out to fight against you, he sent
messengers again to Chizkiyahu, saying, {19:10} Thus shall you speak
to Chizkiyahu king of Yehudah, saying, Don't let your God in whom you
trust deceive you, saying, Yerushalayim shall not be given into the
hand of the king of Ashur. {19:11} Behold, you have heard what the
kings of Ashur have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly: and
shall you be delivered? {19:12} Have the gods of the nations delivered
them, which my fathers have destroyed, Gozan, and Charan, and Retzef,
and the children of `Eden that were in Telassar? {19:13} Where is the
king of Chamat, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of
Sefarvayim, of Hena, and `Ivvah? {19:14} Chizkiyahu received the
letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Chizkiyahu
went up to the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD.
{19:15} Chizkiyahu prayed before the LORD, and said, LORD, the God of
Yisra'el, who sit [above] the Keruvim, you are the God, even you
alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and
earth. {19:16} Incline your ear, LORD, and hear; open your eyes, LORD,
and see; and hear the words of Sancheriv, with which he has sent him
to defy the living God. {19:17} Of a truth, LORD, the kings of Ashur
have laid waste the nations and their lands, {19:18} and have cast
their gods into the fire; for they were no gods, but the work of men's
hands, wood and stone; therefore they have destroyed them. {19:19} Now
therefore, LORD our God, save you us, I beg you, out of his hand, that
all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you LORD are God alone.
{19:20} Then Yeshaiyahu the son of Amotz sent to Chizkiyahu, saying,
Thus says the LORD, the God of Yisra'el, Whereas you have prayed to me
against Sancheriv king of Ashur, I have heard [you]. {19:21} This is
the word that the LORD has spoken concerning him: The virgin daughter
of Tziyon has despised you and ridiculed you; the daughter of
Yerushalayim has shaken her head at you. {19:22} Whom have you defied
and blasphemed? and against whom have you exalted your voice and
lifted up your eyes on high? [even] against the Holy One of Yisra'el.
{19:23} By your messengers you have defied the Lord, and have said,
With the multitude of my chariots am I come up to the height of the
mountains, to the innermost parts of Levanon; and I will cut down the
tall cedars of it, and the choice fir trees of it; and I will enter
into his farthest lodging-place, the forest of his fruitful field.
{19:24} I have dug and drunk strange waters, and with the sole of my
feet will I dry up all the rivers of Egypt. {19:25} Haven't you heard
how I have done it long ago, and formed it of ancient times? now have
I brought it to pass, that it should be yours to lay waste fortified
cities into ruinous heaps. {19:26} 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 grain blasted before it is grown up. {19:27} But I know your
sitting down, and your going out, and your coming in, and your raging
against me. {19:28} Because of your raging against me, and because
your arrogance is come up into my ears, therefore will I put my hook
in your nose, and my bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by
the way by which you came. {19:29} This shall be the sign to you: You
shall eat this year that which grows of itself, and in the second year
that which springs of the same; and in the third year sow you, and
reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of it. {19:30} The
remnant that has escaped of the house of Yehudah shall again take root
downward, and bear fruit upward. {19:31} For out of Yerushalayim shall
go forth a remnant, and out of Mount Tziyon those who shall escape:
the zeal of the LORD shall perform this. {19:32} Therefore thus says
the LORD concerning the king of Ashur, He shall not come to this city,
nor shoot an arrow there, neither shall he come before it with shield,
nor cast up a mound against it. {19:33} By the way that he came, by
the same shall he return, and he shall not come to this city, says the
LORD. {19:34} For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake,
and for my servant David's sake. {19:35} It happened that night, that
the angel of the LORD went forth, and struck in the camp of the Ashur
one hundred eighty-five thousand: and when men arose early in the
morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. {19:36} So Sancheriv king
of Ashur departed, and went and returned, and lived at Nineveh.
{19:37} It happened, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisrokh his
god, that Adrammelekh and Sar'etzer struck him with the sword: and
they escaped into the land of Ararat. Esar-Chaddon his son reigned in
his place.
{20:1} In those days was Chizkiyahu sick to death. Yeshaiyahu the
prophet the son of Amotz came to him, and said to him, Thus says the
LORD, Set your house in order: for you shall die, and not live. {20:2}
Then he turned his face to the wall, and prayed to the LORD, saying,
{20:3} Remember now, LORD, I beg you, how I have walked before you in
truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in
your sight. Chizkiyahu wept sore. {20:4} It happened, before
Yeshaiyahu was gone out into the middle part of the city, that the
word of the LORD came to him, saying, {20:5} Turn back, and tell
Chizkiyahu the prince of my people, Thus says the LORD, the God of
David your father, I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears:
behold, I will heal you; on the third day you shall go up to the house
of the LORD. {20:6} I will add to your days fifteen years; and I will
deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Ashur; and I
will defend this city for my own sake, and for my servant David's
sake. {20:7} Yeshaiyahu said, Take a cake of figs. They took and laid
it on the boil, and he recovered. {20:8} Chizkiyahu said to
Yeshaiyahu, What shall be the sign that the LORD will heal me, and
that I shall go up to the house of the LORD the third day? {20:9}
Yeshaiyahu said, This shall be the sign to you from the LORD, that the
LORD will do the thing that he has spoken: shall the shadow go forward
ten steps, or go back ten steps? {20:10} Chizkiyahu answered, It is a
light thing for the shadow to decline ten steps: nay, but let the
shadow return backward ten steps. {20:11} Yeshaiyahu the prophet cried
to the LORD; and he brought the shadow ten steps backward, by which it
had gone down on the dial of Achaz. {20:12} At that time
Berodakh-Bal'adan the son of Bal'adan, king of Bavel, sent letters and
a present to Chizkiyahu; for he had heard that Chizkiyahu had been
sick. {20:13} Chizkiyahu listened to them, and shown them all the
house of his precious things, the silver, and the gold, and the
spices, and the precious oil, and the house of his armor, and all that
was found in his treasures: there was nothing in his house, nor in all
his dominion, that Chizkiyahu didn't show them. {20:14} Then came
Yeshaiyahu the prophet to king Chizkiyahu, and said to him, What said
these men? and from whence came they to you? Chizkiyahu said, They are
come from a far country, even from Bavel. {20:15} He said, What have
they seen in your house? Chizkiyahu answered, All that is in my house
have they seen: there is nothing among my treasures that I have not
shown them. {20:16} Yeshaiyahu said to Chizkiyahu, Hear the word of
the LORD. {20:17} Behold, the days come, that all that is in your
house, and that which your fathers have laid up in store to this day,
shall be carried to Bavel: nothing shall be left, says the LORD.
{20:18} Of your sons who shall issue from you, whom you shall father,
shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the
king of Bavel. {20:19} Then said Chizkiyahu to Yeshaiyahu, Good is the
word of the LORD which you have spoken. He said moreover, Isn't it so,
if shalom and truth shall be in my days? {20:20} Now the rest of the
acts of Chizkiyahu, and all his might, and how he made the pool, and
the conduit, and brought water into the city, aren't they written in
the book of the chronicles of the kings of Yehudah? {20:21} Chizkiyahu
slept with his fathers; and Menasheh his son reigned in his place.
{21:1} Menasheh was twelve years old when he began to reign; and he
reigned fifty-five years in Yerushalayim: and his mother's name was
Cheftzi-Bah. {21:2} He did that which was evil in the sight of the
LORD, after the abominations of the nations whom the LORD cast out
before the children of Yisra'el. {21:3} For he built again the high
places which Chizkiyahu his father had destroyed; and he reared up
altars for Ba`al, and made an Asherah, as did Ach'av king of Yisra'el,
and worshiped all the army of the sky, and served them. {21:4} He
built altars in the house of the LORD, of which the LORD said, In
Yerushalayim will I put my name. {21:5} He built altars for all the
army of the sky in the two courts of the house of the LORD. {21:6} He
made his son to pass through the fire, and practiced sorcery, and used
enchantments, and dealt with those who had familiar spirits, and with
wizards: he worked much evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him
to anger. {21:7} He set the engraved image of Asherah, that he had
made, in the house of which the LORD said to David and to Shlomo his
son, In this house, and in Yerushalayim, which I have chosen out of
all the tribes of Yisra'el, will I put my name forever; {21:8} neither
will I cause the feet of Yisra'el to wander any more out of the land
which I gave their fathers, if only they will observe to do according
to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the law that
my servant Moshe commanded them. {21:9} But they didn't listen: and
Menasheh seduced them to do that which is evil more than did the
nations whom the LORD destroyed before the children of Yisra'el.
{21:10} The LORD spoke by his servants the prophets, saying, {21:11}
Because Menasheh king of Yehudah has done these abominations, and has
done wickedly above all that the Amori did, who were before him, and
has made Yehudah also to sin with his idols; {21:12} therefore thus
says the LORD, the God of Yisra'el, Behold, I bring such evil on
Yerushalayim and Yehudah, that whoever hears of it, both his ears
shall tingle. {21:13} I will stretch over Yerushalayim the line of
Shomron, and the plummet of the house of Ach'av; and I will wipe
Yerushalayim as a man wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside
down. {21:14} I will cast off the remnant of my inheritance, and
deliver them into the hand of their enemies; and they shall become a
prey and a spoil to all their enemies; {21:15} because they have done
that which is evil in my sight, and have provoked me to anger, since
the day their fathers came forth out of Egypt, even to this day.
{21:16} Moreover Menasheh shed innocent blood very much, until he had
filled Yerushalayim from one end to another; besides his sin with
which he made Yehudah to sin, in doing that which was evil in the
sight of the LORD. {21:17} Now the rest of the acts of Menasheh, and
all that he did, and his sin that he sinned, aren't they written in
the book of the chronicles of the kings of Yehudah? {21:18} Menasheh
slept with his fathers, and was buried in the garden of his own house,
in the garden of Uzza: and Amon his son reigned in his place. {21:19}
Amon was twenty-two years old when he began to reign; and he reigned
two years in Yerushalayim: and his mother's name was Meshullemet the
daughter of Charutz of Yotvah. {21:20} He did that which was evil in
the sight of the LORD, as did Menasheh his father. {21:21} He walked
in all the way that his father walked in, and served the idols that
his father served, and worshiped them: {21:22} and he forsook the
LORD, the God of his fathers, and didn't walk in the way of the LORD.
{21:23} The servants of Amon conspired against him, and put the king
to death in his own house. {21:24} But the people of the land killed
all those who had conspired against king Amon; and the people of the
land made Yoshiyahu his son king in his place. {21:25} Now the rest of
the acts of Amon which he did, aren't they written in the book of the
chronicles of the kings of Yehudah? {21:26} He was buried in his tomb
in the garden of Uzza: and Yoshiyahu his son reigned in his place.
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Footnotes:
[1] {19:2} priests
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