The Second Book Melakhim, starting at chapter 19
{19:1} It happened, when king Hizkiyahu 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 [1>]Sofer[<1], and the Zakenim of the [2>]Kohanim[<2],
covered with sackcloth, to Yesha`yahu the prophet the son of Amotz.
{19:3} They said to him, Thus says Hizkiyahu, 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 Ashshur 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
Hizkiyahu came to Yesha`yahu. {19:6} Yesha`yahu 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
Ashshur 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 Ashshur 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 Hizkiyahu, saying, {19:10} Thus shall you
speak to Hizkiyahu 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 Ashshur. {19:11} Behold, you have heard what
the kings of Ashshur 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
Haran, and Retzef, and the children of `Eden that were in Telassar?
{19:13} Where is the king of Hamat, and the king of Arpad, and the
king of the city of Sefarvayim, of Hena, and `Ivvah? {19:14} Hizkiyahu
received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and
Hizkiyahu went up to the house of the LORD, and spread it before the
LORD. {19:15} Hizkiyahu 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 [3>]eretz[<3]; you have made
heaven and [4>]eretz[<4]. {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 Ashshur 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 [5>]eretz[<5]
may know that you LORD are God alone. {19:20} Then Yesha`yahu the son
of Amotz sent to Hizkiyahu, saying, Thus says the LORD, the God of
Yisra'el, Whereas you have prayed to me against Sancheriv king of
Ashshur, 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 Mitzrayim. {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 Ashshur, 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 Ashshur 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 Ashshur 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-Haddon his son
reigned in his place.
{20:1} In those days was Hizkiyahu sick to death. Yesha`yahu 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. Hizkiyahu wept sore. {20:4} It happened, before Yesha`yahu
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 Hizkiyahu 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 Ashshur; and I will defend this
city for my own sake, and for my servant David's sake. {20:7}
Yesha`yahu said, Take a cake of figs. They took and laid it on the
boil, and he recovered. {20:8} Hizkiyahu said to Yesha`yahu, 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} Yesha`yahu 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} Hizkiyahu answered, It is a light thing for
the shadow to decline ten steps: nay, but let the shadow return
backward ten steps. {20:11} Yesha`yahu 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
Hizkiyahu; for he had heard that Hizkiyahu had been sick. {20:13}
Hizkiyahu 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 Hizkiyahu didn't show them. {20:14} Then came
Yesha`yahu the prophet to king Hizkiyahu, and said to him, What said
these men? and from whence came they to you? Hizkiyahu said, They are
come from a far country, even from Bavel. {20:15} He said, What have
they seen in your house? Hizkiyahu answered, All that is in my house
have they seen: there is nothing among my treasures that I have not
shown them. {20:16} Yesha`yahu said to Hizkiyahu, 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 Hizkiyahu to Yesha`yahu, 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 Hizkiyahu, 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} Hizkiyahu
slept with his fathers; and Menashsheh his son reigned in his place.
{21:1} Menashsheh was twelve years old when he began to reign; and
he reigned fifty-five years in Yerushalayim: and his mother's name was
Heftzi-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 Hizkiyahu 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 host of the sky, and served them. {21:4} He
built altars in the house of the LORD, whereof the LORD said, In
Yerushalayim will I put my name. {21:5} He built altars for all the
host 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
Menashsheh 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 Menashsheh 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 Mitzrayim, even to this day.
{21:16} Moreover Menashsheh 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 Menashsheh, 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} Menashsheh
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 Harutz of Yotvah. {21:20} He did that which was evil in
the sight of the LORD, as did Menashsheh 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} scribe
[2] {19:2} priests
[3] {19:15} earth
[4] {19:15} earth
[5] {19:19} earth
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