7. “Be strong and steadfast; do not be afraid or dismayed because of the king of Assyria and all the horde coming with him, for there is more with us than with him.
8. He has only an arm of flesh, but we have the Lord, our God, to help us and to fight our battles.” And the people took confidence from the words of Hezekiah, king of Judah.
9. After this, while Sennacherib, king of Assyria, himself remained at Lachish with all his forces, he sent his officials to Jerusalem with this message for Hezekiah, king of Judah, and all the Judahites who were in Jerusalem:
10. “Thus says Sennacherib, king of Assyria: In what are you trusting, now that you are under siege in Jerusalem?
11. Is not Hezekiah deceiving you, delivering you over to a death of famine and thirst, by his claim that ‘the Lord, our God, will rescue us from the grasp of the king of Assyria’?
12. Has not this same Hezekiah removed the Lord’s own high places and altars and commanded Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You shall bow down before one altar only, and on it alone you shall offer incense’?
13. Do you not know what my fathers and I have done to all the peoples of other lands? Were the gods of the nations in those lands able to rescue their lands from my hand?
14. Who among all the gods of those nations which my fathers put under the ban was able to rescue their people from my hand? Will your god, then, be able to rescue you from my hand?
15. Let not Hezekiah mislead you further and deceive you in any such way. Do not believe him! Since no other god of any other nation or kingdom has been able to rescue his people from my hand or the hands of my fathers, how much the less shall your god rescue you from my hand!”
16. His officials said still more against the Lord God and against his servant Hezekiah,
17. for he had written letters to deride the Lord, the God of Israel, speaking of him in these terms: “As the gods of the nations in other lands have not rescued their people from my hand, neither shall Hezekiah’s god rescue his people from my hand.”
18. In a loud voice they shouted in the language of Judah to the people of Jerusalem who were on the wall, to frighten and terrify them so that they might capture their city.
19. They spoke of the God of Israel as though he were one of the gods of the other peoples of the earth, a work of human hands.
20. But because of this, King Hezekiah and Isaiah the prophet, son of Amoz, prayed and cried out to heaven.
21. Then the Lord sent an angel, who destroyed every warrior, leader, and commander in the camp of the Assyrian king, so that he had to return shamefaced to his own country. And when he entered the temple of his god, some of his own offspring struck him down there with the sword.
22. Thus the Lord saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib, king of Assyria, as from every other power; he gave them rest on every side.