9. And when the sovereign heard concerning Tirhaqah sovereign of Kush, “See, he has come out to fight against you,” he again sent messengers to Ḥizqiyahu, saying,
10. “Speak to Ḥizqiyahu sovereign of Yehuḏah, saying, ‘Do not let your Elohim in whom you trust deceive you, saying, “Yerushalayim is not given into the hand of the sovereign of Ashshur.”
11. ‘See, you have heard what the sovereigns of Ashshur have done to all lands by putting them under the ban. And are you going to be delivered?
12. ‘Have the mighty ones of the nations delivered those whom my fathers have destroyed: Gozan and Ḥaran and Retseph, and the sons of Ěḏen who were in Telassar?
13. ‘Where is the sovereign of Ḥamath, and the sovereign of Arpaḏ, and the sovereign of the city of Sepharwayim, Hĕna, and Iwwah?’ ”
14. And Ḥizqiyahu received the letters from the hand of the messengers, and read them, and went up to the House of יהוה. And Ḥizqiyahu spread it before יהוה.
15. And Ḥizqiyahu prayed before יהוה, and said, “O יהוה Elohim of Yisra’ĕl, the One who dwells between the keruḇim, You are Elohim, You alone, of all the reigns of the earth. You have made the heavens and earth.
16. “Incline Your ear, O יהוה, and hear. Open Your eyes, O יהוה, and see. And hear the words of Sanḥĕriḇ, which he has sent to reproach the living Elohim.
17. “Truly, יהוה, the sovereigns of Ashshur have laid waste the nations and their lands,
18. and have put their mighty ones into the fire, for they were not mighty ones, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, and destroyed them.
19. “And now, O יהוה our Elohim, I pray, save us from his hand, so that all the reigns of the earth know that You are יהוה Elohim, You alone.”
20. Then Yeshayahu son of Amots sent to Ḥizqiyahu, saying, “Thus said יהוה Elohim of Yisra’ĕl, ‘I have heard that which you have prayed to Me against Sanḥĕriḇ sovereign of Ashshur.’
21. “This is the word which יהוה has spoken concerning him, ‘The maiden, the daughter of Tsiyon, has despised you, mocked you; the daughter of Yerushalayim has shaken her head behind you!
22. ‘Whom have you reproached and reviled? Against whom have you raised a voice, and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Set-apart One of Yisra’ĕl!
23. ‘By the hand of your messengers you have reproached יהוה, and said, “With my many chariots I have come up to the height of the mountains, to the sides of Leḇanon. And I cut down its tall cedars, its choice cypress trees. And I enter its remotest parts, its thickest forest.
24. ‘I have dug and drunk strange water, and with the soles of my feet I dry up all the streams of defence.”
25. ‘Have you not heard long ago, I made it; from days of old I formed it? Now I have brought it to be, that you should make walled cities ruinous heaps.
26. ‘And their inhabitants were powerless, they were overthrown and put to shame, they were as the grass of the field and the green plants, as the grass on the house-tops and withered before it came up.
27. ‘But I know your sitting down, and your going out and your coming in, and your rage against Me.
28. ‘Because your rage against Me and your pride have come up to My ears, I shall put My hook in your nose and My bridle in your lips, and I shall turn you back by the way which you came.
29. ‘And this is the sign for you: This year you eat what grows of itself, and in the second year what springs from that, and in the third year sow and reap and plant vineyards and eat their fruit.