And Rab-shakeh said to them, Say now to Hezekiah, Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: What confidence is this wherein thou trustest?

You think mere words are strategy and strength for war. What are you now relying on so that you have rebelled against me?

Now look, you must be trusting in Egypt, that splintered reed staff. If a man leans for support on it, it punctures his hand and wounds him. That is what Pharaoh king of Egypt does to all who trust in him.

Then Rab-shakeh stood up and cried out loud, "Listen to what the great king, the king of Assyria has to say.

This is what the king says: 'Don't let Hezekiah mislead you, for he is not able to rescue you from my hand!

Don't listen to Hezekiah!' For this is what the king of Assyria says, 'Send me a token of your submission and surrender to me. Then each of you may eat from his own vine and fig tree and drink water from his own cistern,

What God of any land hath delivered his land out of mine hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of mine hand?"

Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace supervisor, accompanied by Shebna the scribe and Joah son of Asaph, the secretary, went to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and reported to him what the chief adviser had said.

"This is what Hezekiah says: 'This is a day of distress, insults, and humiliation, as when a baby is ready to leave the birth canal, but the mother lacks the strength to push it through.

"This is what Hezekiah says: "Today is a day of trouble, rebuke, and blasphemy, because children are about to be born, but there is no strength to bring them to birth. Perhaps the LORD your God will take note of everything that Rab-shakeh has said, whom his master the king of Assyria sent to taunt the living God, and then he will rebuke the words that the LORD your God has heard. Therefore offer a prayer for the survivors who remain.'"

Isaiah said to them, "Tell your master this: 'This is what the Lord says: "Don't be afraid because of the things you have heard -- these insults the king of Assyria's servants have hurled against me.

"This is what the LORD says: "Never be afraid of the words that you have heard by which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. Look! I'm going to cause an attitude to grow within him so that he'll hear a rumor and return to his own territory, where I'll make him die by the sword in his own land!"'"

This is what you are to say to Hezekiah, king of Judah: Let not your God, in whom is your faith, give you a false hope, saying, Jerusalem will not be given into the hands of the king of Assyria.

Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all countries, destroying them utterly; and shalt thou be delivered?

Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent unto Hezekiah, saying, - Thus, saith Yahweh, God of Israel, What thou hast prayed unto me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria, I have heard.

This is what the Lord says about him: "The virgin daughter Zion despises you, she makes fun of you; Daughter Jerusalem shakes her head after you.

Hast thou not heard - that, long ago, that, is what I appointed, and, from days of old, devised it? Now, have I brought it to pass, that thou mightest serve to lay waste, in desolate ruins, fortified cities;

This will be your confirmation that I have spoken the truth: This year you will eat what grows wild, and next year what grows on its own from that. But in the third year you will plant seed and harvest crops; you will plant vines and consume their produce.

So this is what the Lord says about the king of Assyria: "He will not enter this city, nor will he shoot an arrow here. He will not attack it with his shield-carrying warriors, nor will he build siege works against it.

In those days Hezekiah was stricken with a terminal illness. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz visited him and told him, "This is what the Lord says, 'Give your household instructions, for you are about to die; you will not get well.'"

Ah! Jehovah, remember, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done what is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept much.

"Go back and tell Hezekiah, the leader of my people: 'This is what the Lord God of your ancestor David says: "I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Look, I will heal you. The day after tomorrow you will go up to the Lord's temple.

And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, What shall be the sign that Jehovah will heal me, and that I shall go up into the house of Jehovah the third day?

Isaiah replied, "This is your sign from the Lord confirming that the Lord will do what he has said. Do you want the shadow to move ahead ten steps or to go back ten steps?"

Then came the prophet Isaiah to king Hezekiah and said to him, What said these men? and from whence came they to thee? And Hezekiah said, They came from a far country, from Babylon.

And he said, What have they seen in thy house? And Hezekiah said, All that is in my house have they seen: there is nothing among my treasures that I have not shewn them.

Behold, days come that all that is in thy house, and what thy fathers have laid up until this day, shall be carried to Babylon; nothing shall be left, saith Jehovah.

At this, Hezekiah replied to Isaiah, "What you've spoken from the LORD is good," because he had been thinking, "Why not, as long as there's peace and security in my lifetime"?"

He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight, imitating the detestable practices of the nations that the Lord had dispossessed before the Israelites.

So this is what the Lord God of Israel says, 'I am about to bring disaster on Jerusalem and Judah. The news will reverberate in the ears of those who hear about it.

because they have done what is evil in My sight and have provoked Me from the day their ancestors came out of Egypt until today.’”

Manasseh also shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem with it from one end to another. This was in addition to his sin that he caused Judah to commit. Consequently, they did what was evil in the Lord’s sight.

He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight as his father Manasseh had done.

And the rest of the acts of Amon, what he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?

And he did what was right in the sight of Jehovah, and walked in all the way of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand nor to the left.

And let it be given to the overseers of the work of the Lord's house, to give to the workmen who are making good what was damaged in the house of the Lord;

Then, after reading it, Shaphan the scribe went in to the king and gave him an account of what had been done, saying, Your servants have given out the money which was in the house, and have given it to the overseers of the work of the house of the Lord.

When the king heard what was written in the Book of the Law, he tore his clothes

"Go ask the LORD for me, for the people, and for all of Judah about what's written in this book that has been discovered, because the LORD's anger is burning against us, since our ancestors have not listened to the words written in this book and have not lived according to everything that is written concerning us."

and she said to them: "This is what the Lord God of Israel says: 'Say this to the man who sent you to me:

"This is what the Lord says: 'I am about to bring disaster on this place and its residents, the details of which are recorded in the scroll which the king of Judah has read.

Say this to the king of Judah, who sent you to seek an oracle from the Lord: "This is what the Lord God of Israel says concerning the words you have heard:

Because thy heart was tender, and thou didst humble thyself before Jehovah, when thou heardest what I spoke against this place and against the inhabitants thereof, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and didst rend thy garments and weep before me, I also have heard thee, saith Jehovah.

The king stood beside a pillar and made a covenant in the presence of the LORD: to follow after the LORD, to keep his commandments, his testimonies, and his statutes with all of his heart and soul, and to carry out what was written in the covenant contained in the book. All the people consented to enter into the covenant.

Then he said, What tombstone is that which I see? And the men of the city told him, It is the sepulchre of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed these things which thou hast done against the altar of Bethel.

Josiah also removed all the shrines on the high places in the cities of Samaria. The kings of Israel had made them and angered the Lord. He did to them what he had done to the high place in Bethel.

He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight just as his ancestors had done.

He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight just as his ancestors had done.

He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight as his father had done.

Zedekiah did what was evil in the Lord’s sight just as Jehoiakim had done.

What follows is a record of what happened to Jerusalem and Judah because of the Lord's anger; he finally threw them out of his presence. Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

the captain of the bodyguard also took away the firepans and basins, anything made of fine gold and anything made of fine silver.

Then all the people, from the youngest to the oldest, as well as the army officers, left for Egypt, because they were afraid of what the Babylonians might do.