King Sennacherib of Assyria had been very successful in conquering many lands and was threatening Jerusalem. He sent a message to King Hezekiah urging him to surrender asserting that the God of Israel would be powerless to protect Jerusalem. Hezekiah did not react in desperation but immediately took the matter to God in prayer. He laid out the letter from Sennacherib before the Lord and prayed for guidance. In response to Hezekiah's prayer, God gave Isaiah an oracle against King Sennacherib and that very night an angel of the Lord decimated the Assyrian army. Hezekiah's humble reliance on God saved Jerusalem.

Matthew placed this teaching of Jesus at the end of The Sermon on the Mount where Jesus was teaching on discipleship, trust in God, and moral behaviour. Jesus warned the people to be careful with whom they shared the holy truths. We need to be cautious when we share what God has revealed to us for many will not understand, and our faith may be ridiculed and undermined. Jesus then shared his "Golden Rule" summing up his ethical teaching. Jesus illustrated the difficulty of following his teachings with the metaphor of the narrow gate. In the Old Testament reading, Hezekiah entered the narrow gate when he put his trust in God to save Jerusalem rather than responding with violence.