2. He told Prime Minister Eliakim, Assistant Prime Minister Shebna, and the senior priests to dress in sackcloth and tell the prophet Isaiah:
3. These are difficult and disgraceful times. Our nation is like a woman too weak to give birth, when it's time for her baby to be born.
4. Please pray for those of us who are left alive. The king of Assyria sent his army commander to insult the living God. Perhaps the Lord heard what he said and will do something, if you will pray.
5. When these leaders went to Isaiah,
6. he told them that the Lord had this message for Hezekiah:I am the Lord. Don't worry about the insulting things that have been said about me by these messengers from the king of Assyria.
7. I will upset him with rumours about what's happening in his own country. He will go back, and there I will make him die a violent death.
8. Meanwhile, the commander of the Assyrian forces heard that his king had left the town of Lachish and was now attacking Libnah. So he went there.