Micah 1:9

¹¹For I am with you, says the LORD, to save you; for I will make a full end of all the nations where I have scattered you, but I will not make a full end of you; but I will correct you in measure, and will in no way leave you unpunished.”

¹²For the LORD says, “Your hurt is incurable. Your wound is grievous. ¹³There is no one to plead your cause, that you may be bound up. You have no healing medicines. ¹⁴All your lovers have forgotten you. They don’t seek you. For I have wounded you with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel one, for the greatness of your iniquity, because your sins were increased. ¹⁵Why do you cry over your injury? Your pain is incurable. For the greatness of your iniquity, because your sins have increased, I have done these things to you.

¹⁸Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuses to be healed? Will you indeed be to me as a deceitful brook, like waters that fail?

¹²For the inhabitant of Maroth waits anxiously for good, because evil has come down from the LORD to the gate of Jerusalem.

¹After these things and this faithfulness, Sennacherib king of Assyria came, entered into Judah, encamped against the fortified cities, and intended to win them for himself. ²When Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come, and that he was planning to fight against Jerusalem, ³he took counsel with his princes and his mighty men to stop the waters of the springs which were outside of the city, and they helped him. ⁴Then many people gathered together and they stopped all the springs and the brook that flowed through the middle of the land, saying, “Why should the kings of Assyria come, and find abundant water?”

⁵He took courage, built up all the wall that was broken down, and raised it up to the towers, with the other wall outside, and strengthened Millo in David’s city, and made weapons and shields in abundance. ⁶He set captains of war over the people, gathered them together to him in the wide place at the gate of the city, and spoke encouragingly to them, saying, ⁷“Be strong and courageous. Don’t be afraid or dismayed because of the king of Assyria, nor for all the multitude who is with him; for there is a greater one with us than with him. ⁸An arm of flesh is with him, but the LORD our God is with us to help us and to fight our battles.” The people rested themselves on the words of Hezekiah king of Judah.

⁹After this, Sennacherib king of Assyria sent his servants to Jerusalem, (now he was attacking Lachish, and all his forces were with him), to Hezekiah king of Judah, and to all Judah who were at Jerusalem, saying, ¹⁰Sennacherib king of Assyria says, “In whom do you trust, that you remain under siege in Jerusalem? ¹¹Doesn’t Hezekiah persuade you to give you over to die by famine and by thirst, saying, ‘The LORD our God will deliver us out of the hand of the king of Assyria’? ¹²Hasn’t the same Hezekiah taken away his high places and his altars, and commanded Judah and Jerusalem, saying, ‘You shall worship before one altar, and you shall burn incense on it’? ¹³Don’t you know what I and my fathers have done to all the peoples of the lands? Were the gods of the nations of those lands in any way able to deliver their land out of my hand? ¹⁴Who was there among all the gods of those nations which my fathers utterly destroyed that could deliver his people out of my hand, that your God should be able to deliver you out of my hand? ¹⁵Now therefore don’t let Hezekiah deceive you nor persuade you in this way. Don’t believe him, for no god of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people out of my hand, and out of the hand of my fathers. How much less will your God deliver you out of my hand?”

¹⁶His servants spoke yet more against the LORD God and against his servant Hezekiah. ¹⁷He also wrote letters insulting the LORD, the God of Israel, and speaking against him, saying, “As the gods of the nations of the lands, which have not delivered their people out of my hand, so shall the God of Hezekiah not deliver his people out of my hand.” ¹⁸They called out with a loud voice in the Jews’ language to the people of Jerusalem who were on the wall, to frighten them and to trouble them, that they might take the city. ¹⁹They spoke of the God of Jerusalem as of the gods of the peoples of the earth, which are the work of men’s hands.

²⁰Hezekiah the king and Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, prayed because of this, and cried to heaven.

²¹The LORD sent an angel, who cut off all the mighty men of valor, the leaders, and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned with shame of face to his own land. When he had come into the house of his god, those who came out of his own body^[+] killed him there with the sword. ²²Thus the LORD saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib the king of Assyria and from the hand of all others, and guided them on every side. ²³Many brought gifts to the LORD to Jerusalem, and precious things to Hezekiah king of Judah, so that he was exalted in the sight of all nations from then on.

⁷now therefore, behold, the Lord brings upon them the mighty flood waters of the River: the king of Assyria and all his glory. It will come up over all its channels, and go over all its banks. ⁸It will sweep onward into Judah. It will overflow and pass through. It will reach even to the neck. The stretching out of its wings will fill the width of your land, O Immanuel.

⁹In the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria and besieged it. ¹⁰At the end of three years they took it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken. ¹¹The king of Assyria carried Israel away to Assyria, and put them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes, ¹²because they didn’t obey the LORD their God’s voice, but transgressed his covenant, even all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded, and would not hear it or do it.

¹³Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.

²²this is the word which the LORD 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. ²³Whom 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. ²⁴By your servants, you have 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 cypress trees. I will enter into its farthest height, the forest of its fruitful field. ²⁵I have dug and drunk water, and with the sole of my feet I will dry up all the rivers of Egypt.”

²⁶“‘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. ²⁷Therefore 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. ²⁸But I know your sitting down, your going out, your coming in, and your raging against me. ²⁹Because of your raging against me, and because your arrogance has come up into my ears, therefore I will 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.

³⁰“‘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 it; and in the third year sow and reap and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit. ³¹The remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah will again take root downward, and bear fruit upward. ³²For out of Jerusalem a remnant will go out, and survivors will escape from Mount Zion. The zeal of the LORD of Armies will perform this.’

³³“Therefore the LORD says concerning the king of Assyria, ‘He will not come to this city, nor shoot an arrow there, neither will he come before it with shield, nor cast up a mound against it. ³⁴He will return the way that he came, and he won’t come to this city,’ says the LORD. ³⁵‘For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake, and for my servant David’s sake.’”

³⁶Then the LORD’s angel went out and struck one hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the camp of the Assyrians. When men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.

⁵Why should you be beaten more, that you revolt more and more? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. ⁶From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness in it, but wounds, welts, and open sores. They haven’t been closed, bandaged, or soothed with oil.

²⁸He has come to Aiath. He has passed through Migron. At Michmash he stores his baggage. ²⁹They have gone over the pass. They have taken up their lodging at Geba. Ramah trembles. Gibeah of Saul has fled. ³⁰Cry aloud with your voice, daughter of Gallim! Listen, Laishah! You poor Anathoth! ³¹Madmenah is a fugitive. The inhabitants of Gebim flee for safety. ³²This very day he will halt at Nob. He shakes his hand at the mountain of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.

²⁶Her gates shall lament and mourn. She shall be desolate and sit on the ground.