Yahweh was with him; everywhere he went, he succeeded. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him.

So Hezekiah sent this message to the king of Assyria at Lachish: "I have offended you. Withdraw from me, and I'll accept whatever tribute you impose." So the king of Assyria required Hezekiah to pay him 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold.

Hezekiah gave [him] all the silver that was found in the house of Yahweh, and in the treasures of the king's house.

And at that time Hezekiah had the gold from the doors of the Lord's house, and from the door-pillars plated by him, cut off and gave it to the king of Assyria.

Now, look! You {rely} on the staff of this broken reed, on Egypt, which [when] a man leans on it, it goes into his hand and pierces it! So [is] Pharaoh the king of Egypt for all who are trusting on him!

This is what the king says: Do not be tricked by Hezekiah, for there is no salvation for you in him.

The people were silent, and they did not answer him a word, for the command of that king was saying, "You shall not answer him."

Eliakim the son of Hilkiah who was over the palace, and Shebna the secretary, and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder came to Hezekiah [with] torn clothes, and they told him the words of the chief commander.

They said to him, "Thus says Hezekiah, 'A day of distress, rebuke, and disgrace is this day, for the children {are about to be born}, but there is no strength to bear them.

Perhaps the Lord your God will hear all these things the chief adviser has spoken on behalf of his master, the king of Assyria, who sent him to taunt the living God. When the Lord your God hears, perhaps he will punish him for the things he has said. So pray for this remnant that remains.'"

Look, I [am] putting in him a spirit. He will hear a rumor and return to his land. Then I will cause him to fall by the sword in his land." '"

When the Rabshakeh heard that the king of Assyria had left Lachish, he returned and found him fighting against Libnah.

The king heard that King Tirhakah of Ethiopia was marching out to fight him. He again sent messengers to Hezekiah, ordering them:

Thus shall ye say to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Thy God will not lift thee up whom thou trustest in him, saying, Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assur.

Incline thine ear, Jehovah, and hear; open, Jehovah, thine eyes, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, who hath sent him to reproach the living God.

This is the word that Yahweh has spoken concerning him: She despises you, she scorns you, the virgin daughter of Zion. Behind you the daughter of Jerusalem shakes [her] head.

It happened that he [was] worshiping in the temple of Nisroch his god, and Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him with the sword. Then they escaped [into] the land of Ararat, and Esarhaddon his son became king in his place.

In those days Hezekiah became {deathly ill}, and Isaiah the son of Amoz the prophet came to him and said to him, "Thus says Yahweh, 'Command your house, for you [are about] to die; you will not recover.'"

Isaiah had not gone out from the middle of the city when the word of Yahweh came to him, saying,

Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah and said to him, "What did these men say, and from where have they come to you?" Hezekiah said, "From a far land; they have come from Babylon."

Hezekiah passed away and his son Manasseh replaced him as king.

He made his son pass through the fire, practiced soothsaying and divination, and dealt with mediums and spiritists. He increased the doing of evil in the eyes of Yahweh to provoke him.

"Because Manasseh the king of Judah committed these detestable things [and] did evil more than the Amorites did who were before him and caused even Judah to sin with his idols,

Manasseh passed away and was buried in his palace garden, the garden of Uzzah, and his son Amon replaced him as king.

The servants of Amon conspired against him and killed the king in his palace.

They buried him in his tomb in the garden of Uzza, and Josiah his son became king in place of him.

Eighteen years after King Josiah had begun to reign, the king sent Azaliah's son Shaphan, grandson of Meshullam the scribe, to the LORD's Temple. He told him,

"Go up to Hilkiah the high priest and have him melt down the silver that has been brought by the people to the Lord's temple and has been collected by the guards at the door.

Shaphan the scribe reported to King Josiah, brought up the matter to him, and told him, "Your servants have distributed the money that was found in the Temple by giving it to the workmen who supervise the LORD's Temple."

And to the king of Judah who sent all of you to inquire of Yahweh, thus you shall say to him, "Thus says Yahweh the God of Israel, '[Concerning] the words that you have heard,

So the king sent [word], and all of the elders of Judah and Jerusalem gathered to him.

Then the king went up [to] the temple of Yahweh, and all of the men of Judah and all of the inhabitants of Jerusalem [were] with him, [including] the priests, the prophets, and all of the people from smallest to greatest; and in their {hearing} he read all of the words of the scroll of the covenant that had been found in the temple of Yahweh.

Then he said, "What [is] this gravestone that I [am] seeing?" The men of the city said to him, "[This is the] tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed these things which you have done against the altar of Bethel."

So Josiah said, "Let him rest and let no man move his bones." So they left his bones undisturbed with the bones of the prophet who had come from Samaria.

There was not a king like him before him, who turned to Yahweh with all of his heart and with all of his soul and with all of his might according to the law of Moses, nor did one arise like him afterwards.

However, Yahweh did not turn from the fierceness of his great anger which was kindled against Judah because of all of the provocations [with] which Manasseh had provoked him.

In his days, Pharaoh Neco, king of Egypt, went up against the king of Assyria at the Euphrates River. King Josiah went to meet him, and he killed him at Megiddo as soon as he saw him.

So his servants drove him dead in a chariot from Megiddo, and they brought him to Jerusalem and buried him in his tomb. Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah and anointed him and made him king in place of his father.

The people of the land took Josiah's son Jehoahaz, anointed him, and installed him as king in his father's place. Jehoahaz was 23 years old when he became king. He reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hamutal. She was the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.

Then Pharaoh Neco confined him at Riblah in the land of Hamath, from reigning in Jerusalem, and imposed a levy on the land of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.

Then Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in place of Josiah his father, and he changed his name to Jehoiakim. Then he took Jehoahaz and brought [him] to Egypt, and he died there.

In his days, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up [because] Jehoiakim had become his servant [for] three years; then he turned and rebelled against him.

So Yahweh sent against him raiding bands of Chaldeans, raiding bands of Aram, raiding bands of Moab, and raiding bands of the {Ammonites}. He had sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of Yahweh that he had spoken by the hand of his servants the prophets.

He passed away and his son Jehoiachin replaced him as king.

Jehoiachin king of Judah went out to the king of Babylon, he, his mother, his servants, his commanders, and his court officials. The king of Babylon took him in the eighth year of his reign.

The king of Babylon made Mattaniah, Jehoiachin's uncle, king in Jehoiachin's place. He renamed him Zedekiah.

And because of the wrath of the Lord, this came about in Jerusalem and Judah, till he had sent them all away from before him: and Zedekiah took up arms against the king of Babylon.

But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king, and they overtook him in the Arabah of Jericho, and all of his army scattered from him.

So they captured the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah, and {they passed sentence on him}.

They slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes; then they blinded the eyes of Zedekiah and bound him in bronze fetters and brought him [to] Babylon.

These Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, took with him to the king of Babylon at Riblah.

But it happened in the seventh month that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah the son of Elishama from the offspring of the kingship came, and ten men with him, and they struck down Gedaliah so that he died with the Judeans and with the Chaldeans who were with him at Mizpah.

In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, on the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month, King Evil-Merodach of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, pardoned King Jehoiachin of Judah and released him from prison.

He spoke {kindly} to him, and he gave him a better seat than the seat of the kings who [were] with him in Babylon.

And he changed his prison garments; and he ate bread before him continually all the days of his life;

His allowance was continually given to him from the king, {a portion every day} all the days of his life.