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Yahweh is exalted, for he dwells on high. He has filled Zion with justice and righteousness.

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There will be stability in your times, abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge. The fear of Yahweh is your treasure.

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Behold, their valiant ones cry outside; the ambassadors of peace weep bitterly.

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The highways are desolate. The traveling man ceases. The covenant is broken. He has despised the cities. He doesn’t respect man.

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The land mourns and languishes. Lebanon is confounded and withers away. Sharon is like a desert, and Bashan and Carmel are stripped bare.

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“Now I will arise,” says Yahweh; “Now I will lift myself up. Now I will be exalted.

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You will conceive chaff. You will bring forth stubble. Your breath is a fire that will devour you.

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The peoples will be like the burning of lime, like thorns that are cut down and burned in the fire.

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Hear, you who are far off, what I have done; and, you who are near, acknowledge my might.”

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The sinners in Zion are afraid. Trembling has seized the godless ones. Who among us can live with the devouring fire? Who among us can live with everlasting burning?

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He who walks righteously, and speaks blamelessly; He who despises the gain of oppressions, who gestures with his hands, refusing to take a bribe, who stops his ears from hearing of blood, and shuts his eyes from looking at evil–

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he will dwell on high. His place of defense will be the fortress of rocks. His bread will be supplied. His waters will be sure.

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Your eyes will see the king in his beauty. They will see a distant land.

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Your heart will meditate on the terror. Where is he who counted? Where is he who weighed? Where is he who counted the towers?

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You will no longer see the fierce people, a people of a deep speech that you can’t comprehend, with a strange language that you can’t understand.

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Look at Zion, the city of our appointed festivals. Your eyes will see Jerusalem, a quiet habitation, a tent that won’t be removed. Its stakes will never be plucked up, nor will any of its cords be broken.

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But there Yahweh will be with us in majesty, a place of broad rivers and streams, in which no galley with oars will go, neither will any gallant ship pass by there.

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For Yahweh is our judge. Yahweh is our lawgiver. Yahweh is our king. He will save us.

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Your rigging is untied. They couldn’t strengthen the foot of their mast. They couldn’t spread the sail. Then the prey of a great spoil was divided. The lame took the prey.

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The inhabitant won’t say, “I am sick.” The people who dwell therein will be forgiven their iniquity.

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Come near, you nations, to hear! Listen, you peoples. Let the earth and all it contains hear; the world, and everything that comes from it.

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For Yahweh is enraged against all the nations, and angry with all their armies. He has utterly destroyed them. He has given them over for slaughter.

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Their slain will also be cast out, and the stench of their dead bodies will come up; and the mountains will melt in their blood.

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All of the army of the sky will be dissolved. The sky will be rolled up like a scroll, and all its armies will fade away, as a leaf fades from off a vine or a fig tree.

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For my sword has drunk its fill in the sky. Behold, it will come down on Edom, and on the people of my curse, for judgment.

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Yahweh’s sword is filled with blood. It is covered with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams; for Yahweh has a sacrifice in Bozrah, And a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

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The wild oxen will come down with them, and the young bulls with the mighty bulls; and their land will be drunken with blood, and their dust made greasy with fat.

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For Yahweh has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.

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Its streams will be turned into pitch, its dust into sulfur, And its land will become burning pitch.

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It won’t be quenched night nor day. Its smoke will go up forever. From generation to generation, it will lie waste. No one will pass through it forever and ever.

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But the pelican and the porcupine will possess it. The owl and the raven will dwell in it. He will stretch the line of confusion over it, and the plumb line of emptiness.

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They shall call its nobles to the kingdom, but none shall be there; and all its princes shall be nothing.

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Thorns will come up in its palaces, nettles and thistles in its fortresses; and it will be a habitation of jackals, a court for ostriches.

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The wild animals of the desert will meet with the wolves, and the wild goat will cry to his fellow. Yes, the night creature shall settle there, and shall find herself a place of rest.

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The arrow snake will make her nest there, and lay, hatch, and gather under her shade. Yes, the kites will be gathered there, every one with her mate.

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Search in the book of Yahweh, and read: not one of these will be missing. none will lack her mate. For my mouth has commanded, and his Spirit has gathered them.

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He has cast the lot for them, and his hand has divided it to them with a measuring line. They shall possess it forever. From generation to generation they will dwell in it.

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The wilderness and the dry land will be glad. The desert will rejoice and blossom like a rose.

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It will blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing. Lebanon’s glory Lebanon will be given to it, the excellence of Carmel and Sharon. They will see Yahweh’s glory, the excellence of our God.

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Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees.

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Tell those who have a fearful heart, “Be strong. Don’t be afraid. Behold, your God will come with vengeance, God’s retribution. He will come and save you.

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Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped.

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Then the lame man will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will sing; for waters will break out in the wilderness, and streams in the desert.

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The burning sand will become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water. Grass with reeds and rushes will be in the habitation of jackals, where they lay.

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A highway will be there, a road, and it will be called The Holy Way. The unclean shall not pass over it, but it will be for those who walk in the Way. Wicked fools will not go there.

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No lion will be there, nor will any ravenous animal go up on it. They will not be found there; but the redeemed will walk there.

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The Yahweh’s ransomed ones will return, and come with singing to Zion; and everlasting joy will be on their heads. They will obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.”

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Now it happened in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, that Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all of the fortified cities of Judah, and captured them.

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The king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to king Hezekiah with a large army. He stood by the aqueduct from the upper pool in the fuller’s field highway.

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Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder came out to him.

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Rabshakeh said to them, “Now tell Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, “What confidence is this in which you trust?

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I say that your counsel and strength for the war are only vain words. Now in whom do you trust, that you have rebelled against me?

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Behold, you trust in the staff of this bruised reed, even in Egypt, which if a man leans on it, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him.

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But if you tell me, ‘We trust in Yahweh our God,’ isn’t that he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar?’”

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Now therefore, please make a pledge to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them.

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How then can you turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master’s servants, and put your trust on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?

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Have I come up now without Yahweh against this land to destroy it? Yahweh said to me, “Go up against this land, and destroy it.”‘”

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Then Eliakim, Shebna and Joah said to Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it; and don’t speak to us in the Jews’ language in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”

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But Rabshakeh said, “Has my master sent me only to your master and to you, to speak these words, and not to the men who sit on the wall, who will eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?”

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Then Rabshakeh stood, and called out with a loud voice in the Jews’ language, and said, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria!

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Thus says the king, ‘Don’t let Hezekiah deceive you; for he will not be able to deliver you.

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Don’t let Hezekiah make you trust in Yahweh, saying, “Yahweh will surely deliver us. This city won’t be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”‘

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Don’t listen to Hezekiah, for thus says the king of Assyria, ‘Make your peace with me, and come out to me; and each of you eat from his vine, and each one from his fig tree, and each one of you drink the waters of his own cistern;

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until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards.

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Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, “Yahweh will deliver us.” Have any of the gods of the nations delivered their lands from the hand of the king of Assyria?

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Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they delivered Samaria from my hand?

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Who are they among all the gods of these countries that have delivered their country out of my hand, that Yahweh should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’”

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But they remained silent, and said nothing in reply, for the king’s commandment was, “Don’t answer him.”

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Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him the words of Rabshakeh.

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It happened, when king Hezekiah heard it, that he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into Yahweh’s house.

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He sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz.

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They said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah, ‘This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of rejection; for the children have come to the birth, and there is no strength to bring forth.

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It may be Yahweh your God will hear the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master has sent to defy the living God, and will rebuke the words which Yahweh your God has heard. Therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.’”

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So the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah.

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Isaiah said to them, “Tell your master, ‘Thus says Yahweh, “Don’t be afraid of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.

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Behold, I will put a spirit in him and he will hear news, and will return to his own land. I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.”‘”

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So Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah, for he had heard that he was departed from Lachish.

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He heard news concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, “He has come out to fight against you.” When he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,

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“Thus you shall speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, ‘Don’t let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, “Jerusalem won’t be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”

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Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly. Shall you be delivered?

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Have the gods of the nations delivered them, which my fathers have destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the children of Eden who were in Telassar?

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Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivvah?’”

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Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it. Then Hezekiah went up to Yahweh’s house, and spread it before Yahweh.

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Hezekiah prayed to Yahweh, saying,

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“Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, who is enthroned among the cherubim, you are the God, even you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth.

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Turn your ear, Yahweh, and hear. Open your eyes, Yahweh, and behold. Hear all of the words of Sennacherib, who has sent to defy the living God.

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Truly, Yahweh, the kings of Assyria have destroyed all the countries and their land,

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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 have destroyed them.

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Now therefore, Yahweh our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you are Yahweh, even you only.”

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Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, ‘Because you have prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria,

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this is the word which Yahweh has spoken concerning him. The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and ridiculed you. The daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head at you.

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Whom have you defied and blasphemed? Against whom have you exalted your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel.

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By your servants, have you defied the Lord, and have said, “With the multitude of my chariots I have come up to the height of the mountains, to the innermost parts of Lebanon. I will cut down its tall cedars and its choice fir trees. I will enter into its farthest height, the forest of its fruitful field.

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I have dug and drunk water, and with the sole of my feet I will dry up all the rivers of Egypt.”

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Have you not heard how I have done it long ago, and formed it in ancient times? Now I have brought it to pass, that it should be yours to destroy fortified cities, turning them into ruinous heaps.

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Therefore their inhabitants had little power. They were dismayed and confounded. They were like the grass of the field, and like the green herb, like the grass on the housetops, and like a field before its crop has grown.

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But I know your sitting down, your going out, your coming in, and your raging against me.

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Because of your raging against me, and because your arrogance has come up into my ears, therefore will I put my hook in your nose and my bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way by which you came.

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This shall be the sign to you. You will eat this year that which grows of itself, and in the second year that which springs from the same; and in the third year sow and reap and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit.

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The remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah will again take root downward, and bear fruit upward.