Mar 27 - 2 Kings 19-21
2 Kings
1And when king Hezekiah had heard this, he tore his garments, and he covered himself with sackcloth, and he entered the house of the Lord2And he sent Eliakim, the first ruler of the house, and Shebnah, the scribe, and the elders from the priests, covered with sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah, the son of Amoz3And they said to him: "Thus says Hezekiah: This day is a day of tribulation, and of rebuke, and of blasphemy. The sons are ready to be born, but the woman in labor does not have the strength4Perhaps the Lord, your God, may hear all the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of the Assyrians, his lord, sent so that he would reproach the living God, and rebuke with words, which the Lord, your God, has heard. And so, offer a prayer on behalf of the remnant that has been found.5And the servants of king Hezekiah went to Isaiah6And Isaiah said to them: "So shall you say to your lord. Thus says the Lord: Do not be afraid before the face of the words that you have heard, by which the servants of the king of the Assyrians have blasphemed me7Behold, I will send a spirit to him, and he will hear a report, and he will return to his own land. And I will bring him down by the sword in his own land.8Then Rabshakeh returned, and he found the king of the Assyrians fighting against Libnah. For he had heard that he had withdrawn from Lachish9And when he had heard from Tirhakah, the king of Ethiopia, saying, "Behold, he has gone out so that he may fight against you," and when he went forth against him, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying10"So shall you say to Hezekiah, the king of Judah: Let not your God, in whom you trust, lead you astray. And you should not say, ‘Jerusalem will not be delivered into the hands of the king of the Assyrians.11For you yourself have heard what the kings of the Assyrians have done to all the lands, the manner in which they have laid waste to them. Therefore, how would you alone be able to be freed12Have the gods of the nations freed any of those whom my fathers have destroyed, such as Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the sons of Eden, who were at Telassar13Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, and of Hena, and of Avva?14And so, when Hezekiah had received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and had read it, he ascended to the house of the Lord, and he spread it out before the Lord15And he prayed in his sight, saying: "O Lord, God of Israel, who sits upon the cherubim, you alone are God, over all the kings of the earth. You made heaven and earth16Incline your ear, and listen. Open your eyes, O Lord, and see. And hear all the words of Sennacherib, who sent so that he might reproach the living God before us17Truly, O Lord, the kings of the Assyrians have devastated all peoples and lands18And they have cast their gods into the fire. For they were not gods, but instead were the works of men’s hands, out of wood and stone. And so they destroyed them19Now therefore, O Lord our God, bring us salvation from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the Lord God.20Then Isaiah, the son of Amoz, sent to Hezekiah, saying: "Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I have heard what you beseeched from me, concerning Sennacherib, the king of the Assyrians21This is the word that the Lord has spoken about him: The virgin daughter of Zion has spurned and ridiculed you. The daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head behind your back22Whom have you reproached, and whom have you blasphemed? Against whom have you exalted your voice, and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel23By the hand of your servants, you have reproached the Lord, and you have said: ‘By the multitude of my chariots I have ascended to the heights of the mountains, to the summit of Lebanon. And I have cut down its sublime cedars, and its elect spruce trees. And I have entered even to its limits. And its forest of Carmel24I have cut down. And I drank foreign waters, and I dried up all the enclosed waters with the steps of my feet.25But have you not heard what I have done from the beginning? From the days of antiquity, I have formed it, and now I have brought it to be. And fortified cities of fighting men will become piles of ruins26And whoever may settle in these, they have trembled, with a weak hand, and they have been confounded. They have become like the hay of the field, and like weeds sprouting on the rooftops, which dry up before they reached maturity27Your habitation, and your exit, and your entrance, and your way, I knew beforehand, along with your fury against me28You have been maddened against me, and your arrogance has ascended to my ears. And so, I will place a ring in your nose, and a bit between your lips. And I will lead you back along the way by which you came29But as for you, Hezekiah, this shall be a sign: Eat this year whatever you will find, and in the second year, whatever may spring up of itself. But in the third year, sow and reap; plant vineyards, and eat from their fruit30And whatever will have been left behind, from the house of Judah, shall send a root downward, and shall bear fruit upward31Indeed, a remnant shall go forth from Jerusalem, and what may be saved shall go forth from mount Zion. The zeal of the Lord of hosts shall accomplish this32For this reason, thus says the Lord about the king of the Assyrians: He shall not enter into this city, nor shoot an arrow into it, nor overtake it with the shield, nor encircle it with fortifications33By the way that he came, so shall he return. And he shall not enter this city, says the Lord34And I will protect this city, and I will save it for my own sake, and for the sake of my servant David.35And so it happened that, in the same night, an Angel of the Lord went and struck down, in the camp of the Assyrians, one hundred and eighty-five thousand. And when he had risen up, at first light, he saw all the bodies of the dead. And withdrawing, he went away36And Sennacherib, the king of the Assyrians, returned and dwelled in Nineveh37And while he was worshipping in the temple of his god, Nisroch, his sons, Adram-melech and Sharezer, struck him with the sword. And they fled into the land of the Armenians. And Esarhaddon, his son, reigned in his place
1In those days, Hezekiah was sick unto death. And the prophet Isaiah, the son of Amoz, came and said to him: "Thus says the Lord God: Instruct your house, for you will die, and not live.2And he turned his face to the wall, and he prayed to the Lord, saying3"I beg you, O Lord, I beseech you, remember how I have walked before you in truth, and with a perfect heart, and how I have done what is pleasing before you." And then Hezekiah wept with a great weeping4And before Isaiah departed from the middle part of the atrium, the word of the Lord came to him, saying5"Return and tell Hezekiah, the leader of my people: Thus says the Lord, the God of your father David: I have heard your prayer, and I have seen your tears. And behold, I have healed you. On the third day, you shall ascend to the temple of the Lord6And I will add fifteen years to your days. Then too, I will free you and this city from the hand of the king of the Assyrians. And I will protect this city for my own sake, and for the sake of my servant David.7And Isaiah said, "Bring me a mass of figs." And when they had brought it, and they had placed it on his sore, he was healed8But Hezekiah had said to Isaiah, "What will be the sign that the Lord will heal me, and that I will ascend to the temple of the Lord on the third day?9And Isaiah said to him: "This will be the sign from the Lord, that the Lord will do the word that he has spoken: Do you wish that the shadow may ascend ten lines, or that it may turn back for the same number of degrees?10And Hezekiah said: "It is easy for the shadow to increase for ten lines. And so I do not wish that this be done. Instead, let it turn back for ten degrees.11And so the prophet Isaiah called upon the Lord. And he led back the shadow, along the lines by which it had already descended on the sundial of Ahaz, in reverse for ten degrees12At that time, Merodach-baladan, the son of Baladan, the king of the Babylonians, sent letters and gifts to Hezekiah. For he had heard that Hezekiah had been ill13Now Hezekiah rejoiced at their arrival, and so he revealed to them the house of aromatic spices, and the gold and silver, and the various pigments and ointments, and the house of his vessels, and all that he was able to have in his treasuries. There was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominions, that Hezekiah did not show to them14Then the prophet Isaiah came to king Hezekiah, and said to him: "What did these men say? And from where did they come to you?" And Hezekiah said to him, "They came to me from Babylon, from a far away land.15And he responded, "What did they see in your house?" And Hezekiah said: "They saw all things whatsoever that are in my house. There is nothing in my treasuries that I did not show to them.16And so Isaiah said to Hezekiah: "Listen to the word of the Lord17Behold, the days are coming when all that is in your house, and all that your fathers have stored up even to this day, will be carried away to Babylon. Nothing at all shall remain, says the Lord18Then too, they will take from your sons, who will go forth from you, whom you will conceive. And they will be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.19Hezekiah said to Isaiah: "The word of the Lord, which you have spoken, is good. Let peace and truth be in my days.20Now the rest of the words of Hezekiah, and all his strength, and how he made a pool, and an aqueduct, and how he brought waters into the city, have these not been written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Judah21And Hezekiah slept with his fathers. And Manasseh, his son, reigned in his place
1Manasseh was twelve years old when he had begun to reign, and he reigned for fifty-five years in Jerusalem. The name of his mother was Hephzibah2And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, in accord with the idols of the nations that the Lord destroyed before the face of the sons of Israel3And he turned away. And he built up the high places that his father, Hezekiah, had destroyed. And he erected altars to Baal, and he made sacred groves, just as Ahab, the king of Israel, had done. And he adored the entire army of heaven, and he served them4And he constructed altars in the house of the Lord, about which the Lord said: "In Jerusalem, I will place my name.5And he constructed altars, for the entire army of heaven, within the two courts of the temple of the Lord6And he led his son through fire. And he used divinations, and observed omens, and appointed soothsayers, and multiplied diviners, so that he did evil before the Lord, and provoked him7Also, he set up an idol, of the sacred grove that he had made, in the temple of the Lord, about which the Lord said to David, and to his son Solomon: "In this temple, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will place my name forever8And I will no longer cause the feet of Israel to be moved from the land that I gave to their fathers: if only they will take care to do all that I have instructed them, and the entire law that my servant Moses commanded to them.9Yet truly, they did not listen. Instead, they were seduced by Manasseh, so that they did evil, more so than the nations that the Lord crushed before the face of the sons of Israel10And so the Lord spoke, by the hand of his servants, the prophets, saying11"Since Manasseh, the king of Judah, has committed these wicked abominations, beyond all that the Amorites before him have done, and also has caused Judah to sin by his defilements12because of this, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Behold, I will lead evils over Jerusalem and over Judah, such that, whoever will hear of these things, both his ears will ring13And I will extend the measuring line of Samaria over Jerusalem, with the scale of the house of Ahab. And I will erase Jerusalem, just as writing tablets are usually erased. And after erasing, I will turn it and repeatedly drag a stylus over its surface14And truly, I will send away the remnants of my inheritance, and I will deliver them into the hands of their enemies. And they will be devastated and plundered by all their adversaries15For they have done evil before me, and they have persevered in provoking me, from the day when their fathers departed from Egypt, even to this day16Moreover, Manasseh also has shed an exceedingly great amount of innocent blood, until he filled Jerusalem even to the mouth, aside from his sins by which he caused Judah to sin, so that they did evil before the Lord.17Now the rest of the words of Manasseh, and all that he did, and his sin that he sinned, have these not been written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Judah18And Manasseh slept with his fathers, and he was buried in the garden of his own house, in the garden of Uzza. And Amon, his son, reigned in his place19Amon was twenty-two years old when he had begun to reign, and he reigned for two years in Jerusalem. The name of his mother was Meshullemeth, the daughter of Haruz, from Jotbah20And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, just as his father, Manasseh, had done21And he walked in all the ways in which his father had walked. And he served the unclean things that his father had served, and he adored them22And he abandoned the Lord, the God of his fathers, and he did not walk in the way of the Lord23And his servants undertook treachery against him. And they killed the king in his own house24But the people of the land slew all those who had conspired against king Amon. And they appointed for themselves Josiah, his son, as king in his place25But the rest of the words of Amon, which he did, have these not been written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Judah26And they buried him in his sepulcher, in the garden of Uzza. And his son, Josiah, reigned in his place