Later on, as he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, Adrammelech and Sharezer killed him with a sword and fled into the territory of Ararat. Then Sennacherib's son Esarhaddon became king in his place.

During this time, Hezekiah became sick with a fatal illness, so Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, approached him and told him, "This is what the LORD says: "Put your household in order, because you are dying. You will not survive.'"

"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.

Furthermore, I'll add fifteen years to your life. I'll deliver you and this city from domination by the king of Assyria, and I'll defend this city for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David."'"

Isaiah said, "Take a fig cake." So some attendants took it, laid it on Hezekiah's boil, and he recovered.

Now Hezekiah had asked Isaiah, "What is to be the sign that the LORD is healing me and that I'll be going up to the LORD's Temple three days from now?"

Hezekiah answered, "It's an easy thing for a shadow to lengthen ten steps. So let the shadow go backward ten steps."

So Isaiah cried out to the LORD, who brought the shadow back ten steps after it had gone down the stairway of Ahaz.

Some time later, Berodach-baladan, the son of King Baladan of Babylon, sent letters and a gift to Hezekiah, because he had heard that Hezekiah had been ill.

Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah and asked him, "What did these men have to say, and where did they come from?" Hezekiah replied, "They came from a country far away from Babylon."

He asked, "What did they see in your household?" Hezekiah answered, "They have seen everything. In my household there is nothing in my treasuries that I haven't shown them."

"Some of your descendants your very own seed, whom you will father will be carried away to become officials in the palace of the king of Babylon.'"

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 also built altars in the LORD's Temple, about which the LORD had said, "In Jerusalem I will place my Name."

He made his son into a burnt offering, practiced witchcraft, used divination, and consorted with mediums and spirit-channelers. He practiced many things that the LORD considered to be evil and provoked him.

He also erected the carved image of Asherah that he had made inside the Temple about which the LORD had spoken to David and to his son Solomon, "I will put my Name forever in this Temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen from all of the tribes of Israel.

And I will not make Israel's feet to wander anymore from the land that I have given to their ancestors, if they will only be careful to do everything that I have commanded them according to the entire Law that my servant Moses commanded them."

"Because King Manasseh of Judah has committed these despicable things, acting more sinfully than did all of the Amorites who preceded him, including making Judah sin with its idols,

therefore this is what the LORD God of Israel says: "Look! I'm going to bring such a disaster to Jerusalem and Judah that both ears of those who hear about it will ring.

I'll stretch out over Jerusalem the measuring line that is Samaria and the plumb line that is Ahab's dynasty. Then I'll wipe Jerusalem like one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down!

I will abandon the survivors of my heritage and hand them over to their enemies. They will become war booty and spoil to all of their enemies,

because they have done what I consider to be evil and they have provoked me from the day their ancestors left Egypt right up to this day!'"

As a result, he abandoned the LORD God of his ancestors and did not walk in the LORD's way.

But afterward, the people of the land executed everyone who had conspired against King Amon, and the people of the land installed his son Josiah to be king in his place.

He practiced what the LORD considered to be right, living the way his ancestor David had lived, turning neither to the right nor to the left.

"Go to the high priest Hilkiah, so he can count the money that has been brought into the LORD's Temple by the doorkeepers who have been gathering it from the people.

Have them deliver it to the workmen who are supervising the LORD's Temple, so that they may pay it over to the workmen who serve in the LORD's Temple to repair its damages,

But you won't need to force them to be accountable for money already paid to them, since they're faithful."

Later on, Hilkiah the high priest informed Shaphan the scribe, "I've discovered the Book of the Law in the LORD's Temple." Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he began to read it.

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."

Then Shaphan the scribe informed the king, "Hilkiah the priest has given me a book." Then Shaphan read from it in the king's presence.

So Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Achbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah went to the prophet Huldah, the wife of Tikvah's son Shallum, the grandson of Harhas and supervisor of the royal wardrobe, who lived in the Second Quarter in Jerusalem. They spoke with her,

and she told them, "This is what the LORD God of Israel says: "Tell the man who sent you to me:

"This is what the Lord says: "Look! I'm bringing disaster on this place and on its inhabitants everything written in the book that the king of Judah has read

Nevertheless, tell the king of Judah who sent you to ask the LORD about this, "This is what the LORD God of Israel says: "Now about what you've heard,

because your heart was sensitive, and you humbled yourself in the LORD's presence when you heard what I had to say against this place and against its inhabitants that they would become a desolation and a curse and you have torn your clothes and cried out before me, be assured that I have truly heard you,' declares the LORD.

"Therefore, look! I will gather you to your ancestors, and you will be placed in your grave in peace. Your eyes will never see all the evil that I will bring on this place.'"'"

The king went up to the LORD's Temple, accompanied by all the men of Judah, everyone who lived in Jerusalem, the priests, the prophets, and everyone including those who were unimportant and those who were important and he read to them everything written in the Book of the Covenant that had been discovered in the LORD's Temple.

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.

The king unseated the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to burn incense in the high places throughout the cities of Judah and in the environs surrounding Jerusalem, including those who had been burning incense to Baal, to the sun, to the moon, to the constellations, and to every star in the heavens.

Furthermore, he even broke down the altar that had been at Bethel as well as the high place constructed by Nebat's son Jeroboam, who had caused Israel to sin. He demolished its stones, pulverized them to dust, and burned the Asherah.

He asked, "What is this monument that I'm looking at?" The men who lived in that city answered him, "It's the grave of that godly man who came from Judah and predicted these things that you've done against the altar at Bethel!"

Josiah replied, "Leave him alone. No one is to disturb his bones." So they preserved his bones undisturbed, along with the bones of the prophet who had come from Samaria.

After he had slaughtered all the priests who served at the high places and burned their bones on those high places, he returned to Jerusalem.

From the days of the judges who ruled in Israel, no Passover had been celebrated like this, not even in all the reigns of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah.

There had been no king like him before him, who turned to the LORD with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his strength, in obeying everything in the Law of Moses. No king arose like Josiah after him.

Even so, the LORD did not turn away from his fierce and great anger that burned against Judah because of everything with which Manasseh had provoked him.

The LORD said, "I'm going to remove Judah from my sight as well, just as I've removed Israel. I will abandon Jerusalem, this city that I've chosen, as well as the Temple, about which I've spoken, "My Name shall remain there.'"

Josiah's servants drove his corpse in a chariot from Megiddo to Jerusalem and buried him in a tomb made for him.

Pharaoah Neco placed him in custody at Riblah, in the land of Hamath, so that he would not reign in Jerusalem, and imposed a tribute of 100 talents of silver and a talent of gold.

As a result, Jehoiakim paid the silver and gold tribute to Pharaoh, but he passed on the costs to the inhabitants of the land in taxes, in keeping with Pharaoh's orders. He exacted the silver and gold from the people who lived in the land, from each according to his assessment, in order to pay it to Pharaoh Neco.

During his lifetime, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon attacked Jehoiakim, who became his vassal for three years, after which he turned against Nebuchadnezzar and rebelled.

King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came up against the city, along with his servants, who besieged it.

Then Nebuchadnezzar sent away into exile all of Jerusalem all the captains, all the valiant soldiers, 10,000 captives, and all of the craftsmen and ironworkers. Nobody remained except the poorest people of the land.

Zedekiah then rebelled against the king of Babylon, so on the tenth day of the tenth month of the ninth year of Zedekiah's reign, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and his entire army approached Jerusalem, attacked it, encamped against it, and built a siege wall that surrounded the city.

By the ninth day of the fourth month, the resulting famine had become so severe in the city that no food remained for the people who lived in the land.

On the seventh day of the fifth month, which was during the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar's reign as king of Babylon, captain of the guard Nebuzaradan, a servant of the king of Babylon, arrived in Jerusalem

Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, carried the survivors of the people who remained in the city, those who had deserted to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the multitude into exile.

The height of one of the pillars was eighteen cubits, and the capital on top of it was three cubits high. A latticework carved in the form of pomegranates encircled the capital, crafted completely out of brass. The second pillar was identical to the first.

one overseer from the city who supervised the soldiers, five of the king's advisors who had been discovered in the city, the scribe who served the army captain who mustered the army of the land, and 60 men of the land who were discovered in the city.

Now as for the people who remained in the land of Judah whom King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had left behind, he appointed Ahikam's son Gedaliah, the grandson of Shaphan, to rule.

When all the captains of the armies, along with their men, heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah, these men visited Gedaliah at Mizpah: Nethaniah's son Ishmael, Kareah's son Johanan, Tanhumeth the Netophathite's son Seraiah, and Jaazaniah, who was descended from the Maacathites.

Gedaliah made this promise to them and to their men: "Don't be afraid of the servants of the Chaldeans. Live in the land and serve the king of Babylon, and things will go well with you."

Nevertheless, seven months later, Nethaniah's son Ishmael, the grandson of Elishama from the royal family, came with ten men and attacked Gedaliah. As a result, he died along with the Jews and Chaldeans who were with him at Mizpah.

Then all the people, including those who were insignificant and those who were important, fled with the captains of the armed forces to Egypt, because they were afraid of the Chaldeans.

and a regular stipend was provided to him by the king in accordance with his needs for as long as he lived.