2 Kings 19:20-34
God's full answer to Sennacherib's letter: the virgin daughter of Zion despises him; the hook goes in his nose and he returns the way he came; Jerusalem will not see so much as an arrow shot into it — 'I will defend this city, to save it, for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake.'
Read the whole passage — all 15 verses (KJV)
19:20Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, That which thou hast prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria I have heard.
19:21This is the word that the LORD hath spoken concerning him; The virgin the daughter of Zion hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee.
19:22Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed? and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thine eyes on high? even against the Holy One of Israel.
19:23By the messengers thou hast reproached the Lord, and hast said, With the multitude of my chariots I am come up to the height of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon, and will cut down the tall cedar trees thereof, and the choice fir trees thereof: and I will enter into the lodgings of his borders, and into the forest of his Carmel.
19:24I have digged and drunk strange waters, and with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the rivers of besieged places.
19:25Hast thou not heard long ago how I have done it, and of ancient times that I have formed it? now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldest be to lay waste fenced cities into ruinous heaps.
19:26Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, they were dismayed and confounded; they were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the house tops, and as corn blasted before it be grown up.
19:27But I know thy abode, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy rage against me.
19:28Because thy rage against me and thy tumult is come up into mine ears, therefore I will put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest.
19:29And this shall be a sign unto thee, Ye shall eat this year such things as grow of themselves, and in the second year that which springeth of the same; and in the third year sow ye, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruits thereof.
19:30And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall yet again take root downward, and bear fruit upward.
19:31For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and they that escape out of mount Zion: the zeal of the LORD of hosts shall do this.
19:32Therefore thus saith the LORD concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a bank against it.
19:33By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the LORD.
19:34For I will defend this city, to save it, for mine own sake, and for my servant David’s sake.
Fulfillment References
2 Kings 19:35-36 2 Chronicles 32:21-22
Archaeological & Historical Evidence
The Taylor Prism boasts of 46 Judean cities taken and Hezekiah 'shut up like a caged bird' — but claims no capture, no assault, not even a siege ramp at Jerusalem. Uniquely in the Assyrian record, the campaign narrative simply stops. Archaeology at Jerusalem shows no 701 BC destruction layer, while Lachish (Level III) burned exactly as the reliefs depict — the differential the oracle predicted.
How Traditions Read This Prophecy
Scholarship & Sources
Taylor Prism (BM 91032); Ussishkin's Lachish excavation; Herodotus 2.141's mouse-plague tradition; the withdrawal debate in Cogan & Tadmor (AB).
Open the full interactive entry →