2 Kings 18

¹In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign.

²He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem; and his mother's name was Abi daughter of Zechariah.

³And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, according to all that David his father had done.

⁴He removed the high places, broke the sacred pillars, and cut down the Asherah pole; and he shattered the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had been burning incense to it -- it was called Nehushtan.

⁵He trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel; after him there was none like him among all the kings of Judah, or among those who were before him.

⁶And he clung to the LORD; he did not turn aside from following him, and he kept his commandments that the LORD had commanded Moses.

⁷And the Lord was with him; in all that he went out to do he prospered, and he rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him.

⁸He struck the Philistines as far as Gaza and its borders, from watchtower to fortified city.

⁹In the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria and besieged it.

¹⁰And they captured it at the end of three years, in the sixth year of Hezekiah; that is, the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel. Samaria was captured.

¹¹And the king of Assyria exiled Israel to Assyria and settled them in Halah and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

¹²because they did not obey the voice of the LORD their God, and they transgressed his covenant, all that Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded; and they neither heard nor did.

¹³In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.

¹⁴And Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying: 'I have sinned; withdraw from me; whatever you impose on me I will bear.' And the king of Assyria imposed on Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.

¹⁵And Hezekiah gave all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the house of the king.

¹⁶At that time Hezekiah stripped the doors of the temple of the LORD and the doorposts that Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria.

¹⁷And the king of Assyria sent Tartan and Rab-saris and Rabshakeh from Lachish to King Hezekiah with a large army against Jerusalem; and they came up and came to Jerusalem and went up and came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is on the highway of the Washer's Field.

¹⁸And they called for the king, and Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, came out to them, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder.

¹⁹And the Rabshakeh said to them, Tell Hezekiah: Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: What is this trust in which you are trusting?

²⁰You say -- but a mere word of lips -- counsel and strength for battle; now, on whom do you trust, that you have rebelled against me?

²¹Now look, you have trusted in this broken staff of a reed, on Egypt -- which, if a man leans on it, enters his palm and pierces it -- so is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him.

²²And if you say to me, We trust in the Lord our God, is it not he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, You shall bow down before this altar in Jerusalem?

²³Now, please exchange pledges with my lord the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able to provide riders for them.

²⁴How then will you turn back the face of a single governor among the least of the servants of my lord? And you have trusted in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen!

²⁵Moreover, is it without the LORD that I have come up against this place to destroy it? The LORD said to me: Go up against this land and destroy it.

²⁶And Eliakim son of Hilkiah and Shebna and Joah said to Rabshakeh, Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it, and do not speak to us in Judahite in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.

²⁷And the Rabshakeh said to them: 'Was it to your master and to you that my master sent me to speak these words? Was it not also to the men sitting on the wall, to eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?'

²⁸Then Rabshakeh stood and called out in a loud voice in Judahite, and he spoke and said: "Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria!"

²⁹Thus says the king: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you from my hand.

³⁰And do not let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD, saying: 'The LORD will surely deliver us; this city shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.'

³¹Do not listen to Hezekiah, for thus says the king of Assyria: Make terms with me and come out to me, and eat each man from his vine and each man from his fig tree and drink each man the waters of his cistern,

³²until I come and take you to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and oil and honey -- that you may live and not die. Do not listen to Hezekiah, for he misleads you, saying, 'The LORD will deliver us.'

³³Did any of the gods of the nations really deliver each his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?

³⁴Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? For have they delivered Samaria from my hand?

³⁵Who among all the gods of the lands has delivered their land from my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem from my hand?

³⁶But the people were silent and did not answer him a word, for the king's commandment was: "Do not answer him."

³⁷Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him the words of the Rabshakeh.