The Israelites said things about the Lord their God that were not right. They built high places in all their cities, from the watchtower to the fortress.

and they served the manufactured gods, as to which Yahweh had said to them, Ye shall not do this thing.

And they went against his rules, and the agreement which he made with their fathers, and his laws which he gave them; they gave themselves up to things without sense or value, and became foolish like the nations round them, of whom the Lord had said, Do not as they do.

until Jehovah had removed Israel out of his sight, as he had said through all his servants the prophets; and Israel was carried away out of their own land to Assyria, unto this day.

So they said to the king of Assyria, The nations whom you have taken as prisoners and put in the towns of Samaria, have no knowledge of the way of the god of the land: so he has sent lions among them, causing their death, because they have no knowledge of his way.

And the said season Hezekiah rent off the doors of the temple of the LORD and the pillars, which the said Hezekiah king of Judah covered over, and gave them to the king of Assyria.

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?

Thou hast said - they are only words of the lips! - Counsel and might have I for the war. Now, in whom dost thou trust, that thou hast rebelled against me?

But, if ye should say unto me, In Yahweh our God, do we trust, Then is that not he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath removed, and said unto Judah, and unto Jerusalem - Before this altar, shall ye bow down, in Jerusalem?

Am I now come up without Jehovah against this place to destroy it? Jehovah said to me, Go up against this land and destroy it.

And Eliakim the son of Hilkijah, and Shebnah and Joah said to Rab-shakeh, Speak, we pray thee, to thy servants in Syriac, for we understand it, and talk not with us in the Jewish language in the ears of the people that are on the wall.

And Rab-shakeh said to them, Is it to thy master and to thee that my master sent me to speak these words? Is it not to the men that sit on the wall, that they may eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?

And Rab-shakeh stood and cried with a loud voice in the Jewish language, and spoke and said, Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria!

Thus said the king, Hezekiah shall not be lifted up to you: for he shall not be able to deliver you from my hand:

Ye shall not hear to Hezekiah: for thus said the king of Assur, Make me a gift, and come forth to me, and eat ye a man his vine and a man his fig tree, and drink ye a man water of his well,

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.

And they said to him, Thus says Hezekiah: This day is a day of trouble and of rebuke and of reviling; for the children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth.

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.'"

And Isaiah said to them, Thus shall ye say to your master: Thus saith Jehovah: Be not afraid of the words that thou hast heard, wherewith the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.

When he heard it said of Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, "Behold, he has come out to fight against you, he sent messengers again to Hezekiah, saying,

And Hezekiah prayed before Jehovah and said, Jehovah, God of Israel, who sittest between the cherubim, thou, the Same, thou alone art the God of all the kingdoms of the earth: thou hast made the heavens and the earth.

And Isaiah son of Amos will send to Hezekiah, saying, Thus said Jehovah God of Israel, What thou hast prayed to me against Senherib king of Assur, I heard.

This is the word which the Lord has said about him: In the eyes of the virgin daughter of Zion you are shamed and laughed at; the daughter of Jerusalem has made sport of you.

Against whom have you said evil and bitter things? against whom has your voice been loud and your eyes lifted up? even against the Holy One of Israel.

By thy messengers thou hast reproached the Lord, and hast said, With the multitude of my chariots have I come up To the height of the mountain, to the recesses of Lebanon, And I will cut down its tall cedars, the choice of its cypresses; And I will enter into its furthest lodging-place, into the forest of its fruitful field.

Therefore, thus said Jehovah to the king of Assur, He shall not come into this city, and he shall not shoot an arrow there, and a shield shall not come before it, and he shall not cast a mound against it

In those days Hezekiah was sick unto death. And the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, Thus saith Jehovah: Set thy house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live.

"Remember me, LORD," he said, "how I have walked in your presence with integrity, with an undivided heart, and I have accomplished what is good in your sight." And Hezekiah wept deeply.

Turn back and say to Hezekiah the leader of my people, Thus said Jehovah, God of David thy father, I heard thy prayer, I saw thy tears: behold me healing thee: in the third day thou shalt go up to the house of Jehovah.

And Isaiah said, Take a cake of figs. And they took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered.

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?

And Isaiah said, This shall be the sign to thee from Jehovah, that Jehovah will do the thing that he hath spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten degrees, or go back ten degrees?

And Hezekiah said, It is a light thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees: no, but let the shadow return backward ten degrees.

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.

And Isaiah said to Hezekiah, Hear the word of Jehovah:

Behold, the days coming, and there was lifted up all which was in thy house, and what thy fathers treasured up, even to this day, to Babel: not a word shall be left, said Jehovah.

And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, Good is the word of Jehovah which thou hast spoken. And he said, Is it not so? if only there shall be peace and truth in my days!

And he built altars in the house of Jehovah, of which Jehovah had said, In Jerusalem will I put my name.

And he set the graven image of the Asherah that he had made, in the house of which Jehovah had said to David and to Solomon his son, In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will I put my name for ever;

Now the Lord spoke through His servants the prophets, saying,

For this, thus said Jehovah the God of Israel, Behold me bringing evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, which all hearing it, his two ears shall tingle.

And Hilkijah the high priest said to Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of Jehovah. And Hilkijah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it.

And Shaphan the scribe came to the king, and brought the king word again and said, Thy servants have emptied out the money that was found in the house, and have delivered it into the hand of them that do the work, that have the oversight of the house of Jehovah.

Then Shaphan the scribe said to the king, Hilkiah the priest has given me a book; and he was reading it before the king.

And she said to them, Thus saith Jehovah the God of Israel: Tell the man that sent you to me,

Thus said Jehovah, Behold me bringing evil to this place, and upon its inhabitants all the words of the book which the king of Judah read.

But to the king of Judah who sent you to get directions from the Lord, say, This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, has said: As to the words which have come to your ears,

because your heart was tender (receptive, penitent) and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I said against this place and against its inhabitants, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and because you have torn your clothes and wept before Me, I have heard you,” declares the Lord.

And the king stood by a pillar and made a covenant before the LORD that they should walk after the LORD, and keep his commandments and his witnesses and his ordinances with all their hearts and all their souls, and make good the words of the said covenant that were written in the foresaid book. And all the people consented to the covenant.

Then Josiah, turning round, saw on the mountain the places of the dead, and he sent and had the bones taken out of their places and burned on the altar, so making it unclean, as the Lord had said by the man of God when Jeroboam was in his place by the altar on that feast-day. And he, turning his eyes to the resting-place of the man of God who had given word of these things, said:

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.

And he said, Let him alone; let no man move his bones. And they saved his bones, with the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria.

And Jehovah said, I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed Israel, and will reject this city Jerusalem which I have chosen, and the house of which I said, My name shall be there.

And the Lord sent against him bands of the Chaldaeans and of the Edomites and of the Moabites and of the children of Ammon; sending them against Judah for its destruction, as he had said by his servants the prophets.

And he brought out thence all the treasures of the house of Jehovah, and the treasures of the king's house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold that Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of Jehovah, as Jehovah had said.

For through the wrath of the LORD it so chanced to Jerusalem and Judah, until he had cast them out of his sight. And the said Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

And Gedaliah swore unto them and to their men, and said to them, Fear not to be servants of the Chaldeans: dwell in the land, and serve the king of Babylon, and it shall be well with you.

And said kind words to him, and put his seat higher than the seats of the other kings who were with him in Babylon.