Rhyming Isaiah, Chapter 37

Rhyming Isaiah, Chapter 37

King Hezekiah, when he heard their words,

his clothes, like his three officers, he tore, 

and sackcloth, with it, covered himself o’er,

and went into the temple of the LORD.

And Eliakim, who it was he sent

(he who, the palace, was in charge of it),

with Shebna, secretary of the state,

and with the senior priests, how straight away,

in sack cloth covered, to the prophet’s place,

the son of Amoz, him, Isaiah, named.

They said to him, “Thus, Hezekiah says,

this day, we designate, one of distress,

and of rebuke and also of disgrace.

We are just like a woman lacking strength,

to bring to birth the child she’s carrying.

It may be that the LORD your God has heard

the Rabshakeh, all that he said, his words,

he whom his master, of Assyria,

the king, has sent him here so he could mock

the living God, and will give a rebuke

to all the words that he, the LORD, has heard,

your God; therefore, please lift for us a prayer

for all the remnant left that’s serving here.”

Of Hezekiah, King, when they all came,

his servants, to Isaiah to relay

his message, this is what Isaiah said:

“Say to your master, ‘Thus, what says the LORD:

The king, Assyrian, all of his words,

afraid, do not be, those of what you heard,

by which his minions sought to blaspheme me.

A spirit in him, I’ll myself insert,

so that he’ll, on a rumor, mere, retreat

to his own land; and, it is by the sword,

I’ll cause him to fall there in his own land.’”

The Rabshakeh returned back to the king,

Assyrian, who decamped from Lachish

to go to Libnah and to, it, besiege,

because, a rumor, to his ears, had reached

about how he advanced, away, from far,

King Tirhakah of Ethiopia:

“To fight against you he set out from here.”

When he had heard it, he sent messengers

to Hezekiah saying: “Thus shall you,

of Judah, Hezekiah, king, speak to:

Him on whom you rely, your God, do not

let him deceive you, promising, by, that,

Jerusalem, into the hand, will not

be given, of the king, Assyrian.

Yourself, you must have heard what they have done,

all of the kings, those ones, Assyrian,

to all lands, utterly destroying them.

Shall you, delivered, be?  The nations’ gods,

the ones that predecessors, mine, destroyed,

did they deliver them, Rezeph, Coran,

the Edenites in Telassar, Haran?

Where is the king of Hamath, of Arpad,

the king, he of the Sepharvaim who’s called

the city’s king, of Hena, who is king,

or Ivvah’s king, who’s named here finally?”

The letter, from the messengers, their hands,

how Hezekiah took it straight from them,

and where he went when after, it, he read,

up to the temple and he, out, it, spread

before the LORD. And Hezekiah prayed

to him, the LORD, this, what he said out loud:

“O LORD of hosts, of Is’rael, you are God,

who ‘bove the cherubim you are enthroned.

You are God, you alone, of all the world,

its kingdoms, heaven and the earth, you made.

Incline your ear, O LORD, and hear my plea;

please open them, your eyes, O LORD, and see.

Hear all the words Sennacherib has spoke,

that he has sent, the living God, to mock.

LORD, it is true, those of Assyria,

its kings, all nations, they’ve made desolate

and too, their lands, and have, o’er hurled, their gods

into the fire. They, all of them, destroyed

because they were not gods but, of their hands,

they were the works of men, mere stone and wood.

So now, our God, LORD, save us from his hand

so that all of the kingdoms of the world

may know that you alone, O LORD, are God.”

Isaiah, what the son of Amoz sent,

these words to Hezekiah, saying, then:

“Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel:

Because you’ve prayed to me, against, for help,

Sennacherib, King, of Assyria,

the LORD has spoken this concerning him,

against him, this pronouncement, as his word:

“She both despises you and, you, she scorns–

the virgin daughter, Zion; how her head,

she tosses at you while, retreat, you make,

daughter Jerusalem, behind your back.

“Whom you’ve reviled, as well, whom you have mocked?

Against whom you have upwards raised your voice,

and haughtily, you lifted up your eyes?

The Holy One of Israel, against!

You’ve mocked the LORD, your servants, them, it’s by,

and you said, ‘Many chariots, with my,

up on the mountains heights is where I’ve gone,

to the recesses, far, of Lebanon;

its tallest cedars, I have felled its trees;

I’ve cut them down, its choicest cypresses;

I also came to its remotest height,

its densest forest. Also, wells, dug, I

and drank their waters. I have, up, them, dried,

all Egypt’s streams with the sole of, foot, my.’

“Have you not heard?  How all this I prepared

from long ago?  From days of old, I planned

what now I bring to pass, that you should make

the cities, fortified, crash into heaps

of ruins, while all their inhabitants,

shorn of their strength, confounded and dismayed,

they have become like plants, those in the field,

and tender like the newly-growing leaves,

just like the grass, the housetops, covering

before it’s grown, the east wind’s withering.

“If you are rising up or sitting down,

if you are coming in or going out,

I know of them, all your activities,

and also how it is you rage ‘gainst me.

Because you’ve raged against me, and my ears,

the place your arrogance has reached, to there,

my hook into your nose, I will insert,

and in your mouth, a bit, what I will put.

I’ll turn you back so that the road you take 

on your return, the same on which you came.

“And this will be the portent sign for you:

This year, that, what grows from itself, consume,

and in the second year, what springs from that;

then in the third year sow, reap, vineyards, plant,

and what it is you’ll eat, all of their fruit. 

The remnant of the house of Judah that 

survives shall once again take, downward, root,

and upward, where it is that they’ll bear fruit;

for from Jerusalem, shall one go out,

a remnant, and a band, from Zion’s Mount,

of those who have survived.  The LORD of hosts,

it’s by his zeal, what’s doing all of this.

“Therefore, thus says the LORD concerning him,

the king who is o’er all Assyria:

Into the city he shall not come e’er,

nor will he ever shoot an arrow there,

nor come before it boldly with a shield,

or cast a ramp against it for a siege.

It’s by that way on which he came, the one

on which he shall return; he won’t come in

this city, says the LORD.  For I’ll defend

for my own sake, the city, to, it, save,

and also for my servant David’s sake.”

Then how the angel of the LORD set out,

one hundred eighty-five, in thousands count

that number in the camp that he struck down,

of the Assyrians; when morning dawned,

they all were bodies, dead.  When he left, then,

Sennacherib, king of Assyria

went home and where he lived, at Nineveh.

One day as he was worshipping his god,

he was inside the temple of Misroch,

his sons, Sharezer and Adrammelech,

together with their swords they, down, him, struck,

and to the land of Ararat, away,

they ran. It was his son who, him, replaced

as the new king, he, Esarhaddon, named.