17. Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear; open your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God.
18. Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their lands,
19. 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 were destroyed.
20. So now, O Lord our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the Lord.”
21. Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria,
22. this is the word that the Lord has spoken concerning him:“‘She despises you, she scorns you— the virgin daughter of Zion;she wags her head behind you—the daughter of Jerusalem.
23. “‘Whom have you mocked and reviled?Against whom have you raised your voiceand lifted your eyes to the heights?Against the Holy One of Israel!
24. By your servants you have mocked the Lord,and you have said, With my many chariotsI have gone up the heights of the mountains,to the far recesses of Lebanon, to cut down its tallest cedars,its choicest cypresses,to come to its remotest height,its most fruitful forest.
25. I dug wellsand drank waters,to dry up with the sole of my footall the streams of Egypt.
26. “‘Have you not heardthat I determined it long ago?I planned from days of oldwhat now I bring to pass,that you should make fortified citiescrash into heaps of ruins,
27. while their inhabitants, shorn of strength,are dismayed and confounded,and have become like plants of the fieldand like tender grass,like grass on the housetops,blighted before it is grown.
28. “‘I know your sitting downand your going out and coming in,and your raging against me.