Hezekiah and Sennacherib

Hezekiah, king of Judah, trusts in the LORD like no other king: he tears down the idols and even breaks Moses’s bronze serpent, which had become an object of worship. In the fourteenth year of his reign, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, captures the fortified cities of Judah. His envoy, the Rabshakeh, comes up to the walls of Jerusalem and shouts to the people in the language of Judah: no god of any nation has withstood the king of Assyria, so the LORD will not deliver you! Hezekiah tears his clothes, puts on sackcloth, and sends for the prophet Isaiah, who answers: “Do not be afraid.” Then, when he receives a threatening letter, the king spreads it out before the LORD in the temple and prays: “that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you are the LORD God, you only.” That night, the angel of the LORD strikes down 185,000 men in the Assyrian camp. Sennacherib goes home to Nineveh, where his own sons kill him.