2 Kings 19:20-34

²⁰Then Isaiah, son of Amoz, sent a message to Hezekiah, saying, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I have heard your prayer about Sennacherib, king of Assyria.

²¹This is the word the Lord condemning him: The virgin daughter of Zion scorns you and mocks you; the daughter of Jerusalem shakes her head as you run away.

²²Who have you been insulting and ridiculing? Who did you raise your voice against? Who did you look at with so proud eyes? It was against the Holy One of Israel!

²³By your servants you have mocked the Lord. You said: ‘With my many chariots I have ascended to the high mountains, to the farthest peaks of Lebanon. I have chopped down its tallest cedars, the best of its cypress trees. I have reached its most distant outposts, its deepest forests.

²⁴I have dug wells and drunk water in foreign lands. With the soles of my feet I dried up all the rivers in Egypt.’”

²⁵The Lord replies, “Haven't you heard? I decided it long ago; I planned it in the olden days. Now I am making sure it happens—that you are to knock down fortified towns into piles of rubble.

²⁶Their people, powerless, are terrified and humiliated. They're like plants in a field, like soft green shoots, like grass that sprouts on rooftop—scorched before it can even grow.

²⁷But I know you very well—where you live, when you come in, when you leave, and your furious anger against me.

²⁸Because of your furious anger against me, and because I know how you disrespect me, I'm going to put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth, and I will force you to return the same way you came.”

²⁹“Hezekiah, this will be a sign to prove this is true: This year you'll eat what grows by itself. The second year you'll eat what grows from that. But in the third year you'll sow and reap, you'll plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

³⁰The remnant that's left of Judah will revive again, sending roots below and bearing fruit above.

³¹For a remnant will come out of Jerusalem, and survivors will come from Mount Zion. The intense determination of the Lord will make sure this happens.

³²This is what the Lord says about the king of Assyria: He shall not enter this city or shoot an arrow at it. He shall not advance towards it with a shield, or build a siege ramp against it.

³³He shall return the same way he came, and he shall not enter this city, says the Lord.

³⁴I will defend this city and save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.”