Immerse: Kingdoms Full Volume - Flipbook - Page 270
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IMMERSE
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KINGDOMS
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| 19:7-21
king’s messengers. Listen! I myself will move against him, and the king will
receive a message that he is needed at home. So he will return to his land,
where I will have him killed with a sword.’”
Meanwhile, the Assyrian chief of staff left Jerusalem and went to consult
the king of Assyria, who had left Lachish and was attacking Libnah.
Soon afterward King Sennacherib received word that King Tirhakah of
Ethiopia was leading an army to fight against him. Before leaving to meet
the attack, he sent messengers back to Hezekiah in Jerusalem with this
message:
“This message is for King Hezekiah of Judah. Don’t let your God,
in whom you trust, deceive you with promises that Jerusalem will
not be captured by the king of Assyria. You know perfectly well
what the kings of Assyria have done wherever they have gone. They
have completely destroyed everyone who stood in their way! Why
should you be any different? Have the gods of other nations rescued
them—such nations as Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of
Eden who were in Tel-assar? My predecessors destroyed them all!
What happened to the king of Hamath and the king of Arpad? What
happened to the kings of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?”
After Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it, he
went up to the Lord’s Temple and spread it out before the Lord. And
Hezekiah prayed this prayer before the Lord: “O Lord, God of Israel, you
are enthroned between the mighty cherubim! You alone are God of all the
kingdoms of the earth. You alone created the heavens and the earth. Bend
down, O Lord, and listen! Open your eyes, O Lord, and see! Listen to
Sennacherib’s words of defiance against the living God.
“It is true, Lord, that the kings of Assyria have destroyed all these nations. And they have thrown the gods of these nations into the fire and
burned them. But of course the Assyrians could destroy them! They were
not gods at all—only idols of wood and stone shaped by human hands.
Now, O Lord our God, rescue us from his power; then all the kingdoms
of the earth will know that you alone, O Lord, are God.”
Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent this message to Hezekiah: “This is what
the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I have heard your prayer about King
Sennacherib of Assyria. And the Lord has spoken this word against him:
“The virgin daughter of Zion
despises you and laughs at you.
The daughter of Jerusalem
shakes her head in derision as you flee.