2 Kings
18
- In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah
king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign.
- He was twenty-five years old when he became
king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother's name was
Abijah daughter of Zechariah.
- He did what was right in the eyes of the
LORD, just as his father David had done.
- He removed the high places, smashed the
sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze
snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning
incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan.)
- Hezekiah trusted in the LORD, the God of
Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before
him or after him.
- He held fast to the LORD and did not cease
to follow him; he kept the commands the LORD had given Moses.
- And the LORD was with him; he was successful
in whatever he undertook. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and did
not serve him.
- From watchtower to fortified city, he defeated
the Philistines, as far as Gaza and its territory.
- In King Hezekiah's fourth year, which was
the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of
Assyria marched against Samaria and laid siege to it.
- At the end of three years the Assyrians
took it. So Samaria was captured in Hezekiah's sixth year, which was the ninth
year of Hoshea king of Israel.
- The king of Assyria deported Israel to Assyria
and settled them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River and in towns of the
Medes.
- This happened because they had not obeyed
the LORD their God, but had violated his covenant -- all that Moses the servant
of the LORD commanded. They neither listened to the commands nor carried them
out.
- In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah's
reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah
and captured them.
- So Hezekiah king of Judah sent this message
to the king of Assyria at Lachish: "I have done wrong. Withdraw from
me, and I will pay whatever you demand of me." The king of Assyria exacted
from Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents
of gold.
- So Hezekiah gave him all the silver that
was found in the temple of the LORD and in the treasuries of the royal palace.
- At this time Hezekiah king of Judah stripped
off the gold with which he had covered the doors and doorposts of the temple
of the LORD, and gave it to the king of Assyria.
- The king of Assyria sent his supreme commander,
his chief officer and his field commander with a large army, from Lachish
to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They came up to Jerusalem and stopped at the
aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Washerman's Field.
- They called for the king; and Eliakim son
of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of
Asaph the recorder went out to them.
- The field commander said to them, "Tell
Hezekiah: "'This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: On
what are you basing this confidence of yours?
- You say you have strategy and military strength
-- but you speak only empty words. On whom are you depending, that you rebel
against me ?
- Look now, you are depending on Egypt, that
splintered reed of a staff, which pierces a man's hand and wounds him if he
leans on it! Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who depend on him.
- And if you say to me, "We are depending
on the LORD our God" -- isn't he the one whose high places and altars
Hezekiah removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, "You must worship before
this altar in Jerusalem" ?
- "'Come now, make a bargain with my
master, the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses -- if you
can put riders on them!
- How can you repulse one officer of the least
of my master's officials, even though you are depending on Egypt for chariots
and horsemen ?
- Furthermore, have I come to attack and destroy
this place without word from the LORD? The LORD himself told me to march against
this country and destroy it.'"
- Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, and Shebna
and Joah said to the field commander, "Please speak to your servants
in Aramaic, since we understand it. Don't speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing
of the people on the wall."
- But the commander replied, "Was it
only to your master and you that my master sent me to say these things, and
not to the men sitting on the wall -- who, like you, will have to eat their
own filth and drink their own urine ?"
- Then the commander stood and called out
in Hebrew: "Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria !
- This is what the king says: Do not let Hezekiah
deceive you. He cannot deliver you from my hand.
- Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust
in the LORD when he says, 'The LORD will surely deliver us; this city will
not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.'
- "Do not listen to Hezekiah. This is
what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me. Then
every one of you will eat from his own vine and fig tree and drink water from
his own cistern,
- until I come and take you to a land like
your own, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land
of olive trees and honey. Choose life and not death! "Do not listen to
Hezekiah, for he is misleading you when he says, 'The LORD will deliver us.'
- Has the god of any nation ever delivered
his land from the hand of the king of Assyria ?
- Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad?
Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena and Ivvah? Have they rescued Samaria
from my hand ?
- Who of all the gods of these countries has
been able to save his land from me? How then can the LORD deliver Jerusalem
from my hand ?"
- But the people remained silent and said
nothing in reply, because the king had commanded, "Do not answer him."
- Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator,
Shebna the secretary and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went to Hezekiah,
with their clothes torn, and told him what the field commander had said.
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