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.

They served idols which Yahweh had said to them, "You 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 deported and settled in the cities of Samaria do not know the customs of the God of the land, so he sent lions among them, and now they are killing them because they do not know the customs of the God of the land."

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.

Then the chief advisor said to them, "Please say to Hezekiah: 'Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: "What [is] this confidence that you trust?

Thou hast said: Only a word of the lips! counsel and might are for battle; now, on whom hast thou trusted that thou hast rebelled against me?

But if you say to me, 'On Yahweh our God we trust,' [is] it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed, and he had said to Judah and to Jerusalem, 'In the presence of this altar you shall bow down [only] in Jerusalem?'

Have I now come up against this place without Yahweh to destroy it? Yahweh has said to me, 'Go up against this land and destroy it!'" '"

Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah and Shebna and Joah said to the chief commander, "Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we [are] understanding, but you must not speak Judean with us in the ears of the people who [are] on the wall."

The chief commander said to them, "Is it [solely] to your master and to you my master has sent me to speak these words? [Is] it not for the men who sit on the wall to eat their feces and to drink their urine with you?"

Then the chief commander stood and called with a great voice in Judean, and he spoke and said, "Hear the word of the king, the great king of Assyria!

thus said the king, Let not Hezekiah lift you up, for he is not able to deliver you out of his hand;

'Do not hearken unto Hezekiah, for thus said the king of Asshur, Make with me a blessing, and come out unto me, and eat ye each of his vine, and each of his fig-tree, and drink ye each the waters of his own 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.

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.'"

and Isaiah said to them, "Thus you must say to your master, 'Thus says Yahweh, "You must not be afraid because the face of the words which you have heard, [with] which the servants of the king of Assyria have reviled 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,

Then Hezekiah prayed before the face of Yahweh and said, "O Yahweh, God of Israel who lives [above] the cherubim. You [are] God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the world; you have made the heavens and the earth.

And Isaiah son of Amoz sendeth unto Hezekiah, saying, 'Thus said Jehovah, God of Israel, That which thou hast prayed unto Me concerning Sennacherib king of Asshur I have 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 the hand of your messengers you have mocked the Lord, and you have said, 'With my many chariots I have gone up [to] the height of the mountains. [To] the remote areas of Lebanon, I have felled the tallest of its cedars, the choicest of its cypresses. I have entered the place of overnight lodging. Even [to] the edge of forest of its fertile land.

Therefore, thus said Jehovah, Concerning the king of Asshur: He doth not come in unto this city, Nor doth he shoot there an arrow, Nor doth he come before it with shield. Nor doth he pour out against it a mount.

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.'"

"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.

"Return to Hezekiah," he said, "and tell the Commander-in-Chief of my people: "This is what the LORD, the God of your ancestor David, says: "I've heard your prayer and I've observed your tears. Look! I'm healing you. Three days from now, you'll go visit the LORD's Temple.

Then Isaiah said, "Bring a lump of figs," so they took and put it on the skin sores, and he lived.

Hezekiah said to Isaiah, "What is the sign that Yahweh will heal me that I shall go up on the third day [to] the temple of Yahweh?"

Isaiah said, "This [is] the sign for you from Yahweh that Yahweh will do the thing that he has promised: Shall the shadow advance ten steps or shall it return ten steps?"

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 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."

Then he asked, "What did they see in your palace?" And Hezekiah said, "All that is in my palace they have seen; there is nothing that I did not show them in my treasuries."

Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, "Hear the word of Yahweh!

Lo, days are coming, and borne hath been all that is in thy house, and that thy father have treasured up till this day, to Babylon; there is not left a thing, said Jehovah;

Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, "The word of Yahweh which you have spoken [is] good," and he thought, "Is it not that peace and security shall be in my days?"

He built altars in the temple of Yahweh [about] which Yahweh had said, "I will put my name in Jerusalem."

He put the image of the Asherah that he had made in the temple which Yahweh had said to David and to Solomon his son, "In this temple and in Jerusalem which I have chosen from all of the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever.

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

therefore thus said Jehovah, God of Israel, Lo, I am bringing in evil on Jerusalem and Judah, that whoever heareth of it, tingle do his two ears.

Then Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, "I have found the scroll of the Torah in the temple of Yahweh," and Hilkiah gave the scroll to Shaphan and he read it.

Shaphan the secretary came to the king and returned the king a word, and he said, "Your servant poured out the money found in the temple, and they have given it into the hand of the doers of the work appointed [over] the temple of Yahweh."

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 says Yahweh the God of Israel, 'Say to the man who sent you to me,

Thus said Jehovah, Lo, I am bringing in evil unto this place and on its inhabitants, all the words of the book that the king of Judah hath read,

And unto the king of Judah, who is sending you to seek Jehovah, thus do ye say unto him, Thus said Jehovah, God of Israel, The words that thou hast heard --

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 [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.

Yahweh had said, "Even Judah I will remove from my face, as I have removed Israel; I will reject this city that I have chosen, even Jerusalem 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.

Gedaliah swore to them and to their men, and he said to them, "You must not be afraid because of the Chaldeans. Settle in the land and serve the king of Babylon, and may it go 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.