CHAPTER 32

¹After these faithful acts, Sennacherib king of Assyria came, and he came into Judah and encamped against the fortified towns and meant to breach them to take them over. ²And Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come, intent on doing battle against Jerusalem. ³And he took counsel with his commanders and his warriors to stop up the waters of the springs that were outside the city, and they supported him. ⁴And many people gathered and stopped up all the springs and the wadi surging through the land, saying, “Why should the kings of Assyria come and find abundant water?” ⁵And he mustered strength and rebuilt the breached wall and put up towers on it and outside it another wall and fortified the Millo in the City of David and made abundant weapons and shields. ⁶And he appointed battle commanders over the troops and gathered them around him in the square of the city gate and encouraged them, saying, “⁷Be strong and stalwart. Do not be afraid and do not be terrified by the king of Assyria and by the great throng that is with him, for there are more with us than with him. ⁸He has the power of flesh, but the LORD our God is with us to aid us and to fight our battle.” And the troops relied on the words of Hezekiah king of Judah. ⁹After this, Sennacherib king of Assyria sent his servants to Jerusalem—he and all his commanders with him being at Lachish—to Hezekiah king of Judah and to all Judah that was in Jerusalem, saying, ¹⁰“Thus said Sennacherib king of Assyria: ‘In what do you trust that you sit besieged in Jerusalem? ¹¹Is not Hezekiah enticing you to make you die in hunger and in thirst, saying, The LORD will save us from the grip of the king of Assyria? ¹²Has not Hezekiah taken away His high places and His altars and said to Judah, saying, Before a single altar you shall bow down and upon it you shall burn incense? ¹³Do you not know what I and my fathers have done to all the peoples of the lands? Were the gods of the lands able at all to save their land from my hand? ¹⁴Who among all the gods of these nations that my fathers utterly destroyed was able to save his people from my hand, that your god should be able to save you from my hand? ¹⁵And now, let not Hezekiah delude you and let him not entice you in this fashion, and do not put faith in him, for no god, no nation or kingdom was able to save its people from my hand and from the hand of my fathers. How much more so your gods will not save you from my hand.’” ¹⁶And his servants spoke still more against the LORD and against Hezekiah His servant. ¹⁷And he wrote letters to insult the LORD God of Israel and to say about him, saying, “Like the gods of the nations of the lands that did not save their people, so Hezekiah’s god will not save his people from my hand.” ¹⁸And they called out in a loud voice in Judahite to the people of Jerusalem who were on the wall to frighten them and panic them so that they might capture the city. ¹⁹And they spoke about the God of Jerusalem as about the gods of the peoples of the land, the work of human hands. ²⁰And King Hezekiah and Isaiah son of Amoz the prophet prayed about this and cried out to the heavens. ²¹And the LORD sent a messenger and he wiped out every valiant warrior and prince and commander in the camp of the Assyrian king, and he turned back in disgrace to his land. And he entered the house of his god, and the offspring of his own loins took him down there by the sword. ²²And the LORD rescued Hezekiah and the dwellers of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib king of Assyria and from everyone’s hand and gave them respite all around. ²³And many were bringing tribute to the LORD to Jerusalem and precious gifts to Hezekiah king of Judah, and he was exalted in the eyes of all the nations thereafter.

²⁴In those days Hezekiah fell mortally ill. And he prayed to the LORD, and He answered him and gave him a sign. ²⁵But Hezekiah did not respond according to what had been granted him, for his heart grew haughty, and there was fury against him and against Jerusalem. ²⁶And Hezekiah humbled himself after his heart had been haughty, both he and the dwellers of Jerusalem, and the LORD’s fury did not come down on them in Hezekiah’s days. ²⁷And Hezekiah had very great wealth and honor, and he made for himself treasuries for silver and for gold and for precious stones and for spices and for shields and for lovely vessels, ²⁸and storehouses for the yield of grain and wine and oil, and stables for every kind of beast, and for the flocks—pens. ²⁹And towns did he provide for himself and herds of sheep and cattle in abundance, for God gave him very abundant possessions. ³⁰And he, Hezekiah, stopped up the upper outlet of the waters of the Gihon and directed them down to the west of the City of David. And Hezekiah prospered in all he did. ³¹And so in the affair of the spokesmen of the Babylonian commanders who sent to him to inquire about the sign that was in the land when God abandoned him to test him to know what was in his heart. ³²And the rest of the acts of Hezekiah and his loyal deeds, they are written in the vision of the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel. ³³And Hezekiah lay with his fathers, and all Judah and the dwellers of Jerusalem did him honor in his death. And Manasseh his son was king in his stead.