2 Kings 19:21-34

New Catholic Bible

“The virgin daughter of Zion
    despises you and laughs at you.
The daughter of Jerusalem
    tosses her head at you.
²² Whom have you taunted and blasphemed?
    Against whom have you raised your voice
and lifted your eyes in pride?
    Against the Holy One of Israel.
²³ You have taunted the Lord through your messengers by saying,
    ‘I have come up to the heights of the mountains
    with many chariots, to the peaks of Lebanon.
I have cut down tall cedars,
    choice fir trees.
I have entered its most remote stand,
    its finest forests.
²⁴ I have dug wells in foreign lands and drunk the water.
I have dried up the streams of Egypt
    with the soles of my feet.’
²⁵ “Have you not heard?
    Long ago I established it,
    in ancient times I planned it.
Now I have ordained that you break down
    fortified cities into piles of ruins.
²⁶ Their inhabitants, having lost their power,
    have become dismayed and confounded.
They are like the grass in the field,
    like a green plant,
like grass growing on the roof
    that is scorched before it can grow.
²⁷ But I know where you live,
    your going out, your coming in,
    and how you rage against me.
²⁸ The face that you rage against
    and your arrogance have reached my ears.
I will put a ring in your nose
    and a bridle in your mouth.
I will force you to return the way by which you came.
²⁹ “This will be a sign for you:
    This year you will eat what grows by itself,
    and the next year you will eat what springs from that.
But in the third year you will sow and reap,
    you will plant vineyards and eat its fruit.
³⁰ Once more a remnant of Judah that has escaped
    will take root below
    and bear fruit above.
³¹ Out of Jerusalem a remnant will come,
    out of Mount Zion survivors.
    The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
³² “Therefore, thus says the Lord
    concerning the king of Assyria:
He will not enter this city,
    nor will he shoot an arrow there.
He will not come before it with a shield,
    nor will he cast up a siege-work against it.
³³ He will return by the way he came,
    but he will not enter the city, says the Lord,
³⁴ I will defend this city and save it, for my own sake
    and that of David, my servant.”