And at the end of three years they took it; in the sixth year of Hezekiah, that is, the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken.

And the king of Assyria carried away Israel to Assyria, and settled them in Halah and by the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes;

And in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah, and took them.

And Hezekiah gave all the silver that was found in the house of Jehovah, and in the treasures of the king's house.

And the king of Assyria sent Tartan and Rabsaris and Rab-shakeh from Lachish, with a strong force, against king Hezekiah, to Jerusalem. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. And when they were come up, they came and stood by the aqueduct of the upper pool, which is on the highway of the fuller's field.

Thou sayest but it is a word of the lips There is counsel and strength for war. Now on whom dost thou rely, that thou hast revolted against me?

Now behold, thou reliest upon the staff of that broken reed, upon Egypt, on which if a man lean, it goes into his hand and pierces it: so is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all that rely upon him.

And if ye say to me, We rely upon Jehovah our God: is it not he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, Ye shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem?

How then wilt thou turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master's servants? And thou reliest upon Egypt for chariots and for horsemen!

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!

Hearken not to Hezekiah; for thus says the king of Assyria: Make peace with me, and come out to me; and eat every one of his vine and every one of his fig-tree, and drink every one the waters of his own cistern;

until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive-trees and of honey, that ye may live and not die; and hearken not to Hezekiah, when he persuades you, saying, Jehovah will deliver us.

And it came to pass when king Hezekiah heard it, that he rent his garments, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of Jehovah.

Behold, I will put a spirit into him, and he shall hear tidings, and shall return to his own land; and I will make him to fall by the sword in his own land.

Have the gods of the nations which my fathers have destroyed delivered them: Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden that were in Thelassar?

Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed? and against whom hast thou exalted the voice? Against the Holy one of Israel hast thou lifted up thine eyes on high.

And their inhabitants were powerless, They were dismayed and put to shame; They were as the growing grass, and as the green herb, As the grass on the housetops, and grain blighted before it be grown up.

But I know thine abode, and thy going out, and thy coming in, And thy raging against me.

Because thy raging against me and thine arrogance is come up into mine ears, I will put my ring in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, And I will make thee go back by the way by which thou camest.

And this shall be the sign unto thee: They shall eat this year such as groweth of itself, And in the second year that which springeth of the same; But in the third year sow ye and reap, And plant vineyards and eat the fruit thereof.

Therefore thus saith Jehovah concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city, Nor shoot an arrow there, Nor come before it with shield, Nor cast a bank against it.

And I will defend this city, to save it, For mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake.

And it came to pass that night, that an angel of Jehovah went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five thousand. And when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead bodies.

And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead.

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.

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.

Return, and tell Hezekiah the captain of my people, Thus saith Jehovah, the God of David thy father: I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears; behold, I will heal thee: on the third day thou shalt go up to the house of Jehovah;

and I will add to thy days fifteen years; and I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake.

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

And Isaiah the prophet cried to Jehovah, and he brought the shadow back on the degrees by which it had gone down on the dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward.

And Hezekiah hearkened to them, and shewed them all his treasure-house, the silver and the gold, and the spices and the fine oil, and all the house of his armour, and all that was found among his treasures: there was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah did not shew them.

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.

And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, whom thou shalt beget, shall they take away; and they shall be chamberlains in the palace of the king of Babylon.

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 the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and all his might, and how he made the pool and the aqueduct, and brought the water into the city, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?

And Hezekiah slept with his fathers; and Manasseh his son reigned in his stead.

Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign; and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem; and his mother's name was Hephzibah.

And he did evil in the sight of Jehovah, like the abominations of the nations that Jehovah had dispossessed from before the children of Israel.

And he built again the high places that Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he reared up altars to Baal and made an Asherah, as did Ahab king of Israel; and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them.

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

And he built altars to all the host of heaven in both courts of the house of Jehovah.

And he caused his son to pass through the fire, and used magic and divination, and appointed necromancers and soothsayers: he wrought evil beyond measure in the sight of Jehovah, to provoke him to anger.

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;

And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab, and I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipeth a pan, wiping it and turning it upside down.

because they have done evil in my sight, and have provoked me to anger, since the day their fathers came forth out of Egypt even to this day.

And Manasseh shed very much innocent blood, till he had filled Jerusalem with it from one end to another; beside his sin with which he made Judah to sin, in doing evil in the sight of Jehovah.

And the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and all that he did, and his sin which he sinned, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?

And Manasseh slept with his fathers, and was buried in the garden of his own house, in the garden of Uzza; and Amon his son reigned in his stead.

Amon was twenty-two years old when he began to reign; and he reigned two years in Jerusalem; and his mother's name was Meshullemeth, daughter of Haruz of Jotbah.

And he did evil in the sight of Jehovah, as Manasseh his father had done;

and he walked in all the way that his father had walked in, and served the idols that his father had served, and worshipped them;

and he forsook Jehovah the God of his fathers, and walked not in the way of Jehovah.

And the servants of Amon conspired against him, and slew the king in his own house.

But the people of the land smote all them that had conspired against king Amon; and the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his stead.

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 was buried in his sepulchre in the garden of Uzza; and Josiah his son reigned in his stead.

Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign; and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem; and his mother's name was Jedidah, daughter of Adaiah of Bozcath.

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 it came to pass in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, that the king sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, son of Meshullam, the scribe, to the house of Jehovah, saying,

and let them give it into the hand of them that do the work, that have the oversight of the house of Jehovah; and let them give it to those that do the work in the house of Jehovah, to repair the breaches of the house,

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.

And it came to pass when the king heard the words of the book of the law, that he rent his garments.

And Hilkijah the priest, and Ahikam, and Achbor, and Shaphan, and Asaiah, went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of Tikvah, son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe: now she dwelt in Jerusalem in the second quarter of the town; and they spoke with her.

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.

Therefore, behold, I will gather thee unto thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered to thy grave in peace; and thine eyes shall not see all the evil that I will bring upon this place. And they brought the king word again.

And the king went up into the house of Jehovah, and all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests and the prophets, and all the people, both small and great; and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant which had been found in the house of Jehovah.

And the king stood on the dais, and made a covenant before Jehovah, to walk after Jehovah, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all his heart, and with all his soul, to establish the words of this covenant that are written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant.

And the king commanded Hilkijah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the doorkeepers, to bring forth out of the temple of Jehovah all the vessels that had been made for Baal, and for the Asherah, and for all the host of the heavens; and he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them to Bethel.

And he abolished the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense on the high places in the cities of Judah, and the environs of Jerusalem; and them that burned incense to Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the constellations, and to all the host of heaven.

And he broke down the houses of the sodomites, which were in the house of Jehovah, where the women wove tents for the Asherah.

And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba even to Beer-sheba; and he broke down the high places of the gates, those at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, and those on the left hand of any going in at the gate of the city.

Nevertheless the priests of the high places came not up to the altar of Jehovah in Jerusalem, but they ate of the unleavened bread among their brethren.

And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the sons of Hinnom, that no man might cause his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech.

And he abolished the horses that the kings of Judah had appointed to the sun at the entrance of the house of Jehovah, by the chamber of Nathan-melech the chamberlain, which was in the suburbs, and burned the chariots of the sun, with fire.

And the king broke down the altars that were on the roof of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars that Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of Jehovah, and he shattered them, removing them from thence, and cast the powder of them into the torrent of Kidron.

And the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon, did the king defile.

And he broke in pieces the columns, and cut down the Asherahs, and filled their place with the bones of men.

And Josiah turned himself, and saw the sepulchres that were there on the mount; and he sent and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and burned them upon the altar, and defiled it, according to the word of Jehovah, that the man of God had proclaimed, who proclaimed these things.

And all the houses also of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke Jehovah to anger, Josiah removed, and did to them according to all the acts that he had done in Bethel.

And the king commanded all the people saying, Hold the passover to Jehovah your God, as it is written in this book of the covenant.

For there was not holden such a passover from the days of the judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah;

but in the eighteenth year of king Josiah was this passover holden to Jehovah in Jerusalem.

Moreover the necromancers and the soothsayers, and the teraphim and the idols, and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, Josiah took away, that he might perform the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkijah the priest had found in the house of Jehovah.

And the rest of the acts of Josiah, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?

In his days Pharaoh-Nechoh king of Egypt went up against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates; and king Josiah went against him; but Nechoh slew him at Megiddo, when he had seen him.

And his servants carried him in a chariot dead from Megiddo, and brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own sepulchre. And the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and anointed him, and made him king in his father's stead.

Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he began to reign; and he reigned three months in Jerusalem; and his mother's name was Hamutal, daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.

And he did evil in the sight of Jehovah, according to all that his fathers had done.

And Pharaoh-Nechoh had him bound at Riblah in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem; and laid a tribute upon the land of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.

And Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh; but he laid a proportional tax on the land to give the money according to the command of Pharaoh: he exacted the silver and the gold of the people of the land, of every one according to his estimation, to give it to Pharaoh-Nechoh.

Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he began to reign; and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem; and his mother's name was Zebuddah, daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah.

And he did evil in the sight of Jehovah, according to all that his fathers had done.

In his days Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim was his servant three years; then he turned and rebelled against him.

And the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?

And Jehoiakim slept with his fathers, and Jehoiachin his son reigned in his stead.

Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign; and he reigned three months in Jerusalem; and his mother's name was Nehushta, daughter of Elnathan of Jerusalem.