David said to Joab and all of the people with him, “Tear your clothes, put on sackcloth, and mourn before Abner.” As for King David, he followed behind the bier.
Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him the words of the Rabshakeh.
When the king heard the words of the woman, he tore his clothes. Now he was walking across the city wall, and the people looked, and behold, he had sackcloth underneath on his body.
David lifted up his eyes and saw the angel of the Lord standing between earth and heaven with his sword drawn in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. So David and the elders, covered in sackcloth, fell on their faces.
Put on sackcloth and lament, O priests; wail, ministers of the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, ministers of my God, because the grain offering and the drink offering are withheld from the house of your God.
When God saw their actions, that they turned from their evil ways, He changed His mind about the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it.