Study Desk

Give no attention to Hezekiah when he says to you, The Lord will keep us safe. Has any one of the gods of the nations kept his land from falling into the hands of the king of Assyria?

And on hearing it Hezekiah took off his robe and put on haircloth and went into the house of the Lord.

It may be that the Lord your God will give ear to the words of the Rab-shakeh, whom the king of Assyria, his master, has sent to say evil things against the living God, and will make his words come to nothing: so make your prayer for the rest of the people.

See, I will put a spirit into him, and bad news will come to his ears, and he will go back to his land; and there I will have him put to death.

So the Rab-shakeh went back, and when he got there the king of Assyria was making war against Libnah: for it had come to his ears that the king of Assyria had gone away from Lachish.

But now, O Lord our God, give us salvation from his hand, so that it may be clear to all the kingdoms of the earth that you, and you only, are the Lord.

You have sent your servants with evil words against the Lord, and have said, With all my war-carriages I have come up to the top of the mountains, to the inmost parts of Lebanon; and its tall cedars will be cut down, and the best trees of its woods: I will come up into his highest places, into his thick woods.

Sennacherib, king of Assyria, went back to his place at Nineveh.

And it came about, when he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer put him to death with the sword, and they went in flight into the land of Ararat. And Esar-haddon, his son, became king in his place.

And Hezekiah, turning his face to the wall, made his prayer to the Lord, saying,

The writing of Hezekiah, king of Judah, after he had been ill, and had got better from his disease.

The living, the living man, he will give you praise, as I do this day: the father will give the story of your mercy to his children.

And Hezekiah was glad at their coming, and let them see all his store of wealth, the silver and the gold and the spices and the oil, and all the house of his arms, and everything there was in his stores: there was nothing in all his house or his kingdom which he did not let them see.

Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah, Good is the word of the Lord which you have said. And he said in his heart, There will be peace and quiet in my days.

He will give food to his flock like a keeper of sheep; with his arm he will get it together, and will take up the lambs on his breast, gently guiding those which are with young.

In the hollow of whose hand have the waters been measured? and who is able to take the heavens in his stretched-out fingers? who has got together the dust of the earth in a measure? who has taken the weight of the mountains, or put the hills into the scales?

By whom has the spirit of the Lord been guided, or who has been his teacher?

They have only now been planted, and their seed put into the earth, and they have only now taken root, when he sends out his breath over them and they become dry, and the storm-wind takes them away like dry grass.

Have you no knowledge of it? has it not come to your ears? The eternal God, the Lord, the Maker of the ends of the earth, is never feeble or tired; there is no searching out of his wisdom.

Even the young men will become feeble and tired, and the best of them will come to the end of his strength;