The Israelites persisted in all the sins that Jeroboam committed and did not turn away from them.

till that Jehovah hath turned Israel aside from His presence, as He spake by the hand of all His servants the prophets, and Israel is removed from off its land to Asshur, unto this day.

It happened that when they began living there, they did not fear Yahweh, so Yahweh sent lions among them, and they were killing them.

And they spoke to the king of Assyria saying, The nations that thou hast removed and made to dwell in the cities of Samaria know not the manner of the god of the land; therefore he has sent lions among them, and behold, they slay them, because they know not the manner of the god of the land.

So the king of Assyria commanded, saying - Carry thither, one of the priests, whom ye brought away captive from thence, that they may go, and dwell there, - and teach them the custom of the God of the land.

Yet every nation was making their gods, and they put them in the shrine of the high places that the Samaritans had made, every nation in their cities in which they [were] living.

Until this day they [are] doing according to their former customs; none of them [are] fearing Yahweh, and none of them [are] doing according to their statutes, to their decisions, to the law, or to the commands that Yahweh commanded the descendants of Jacob [to] which he had given the name Israel.

The statutes, the decisions, the law, and the commands that he wrote to you, you shall observe to do always, and you shall not fear other gods.

The covenant that I have {made} with you, you shall not forget, and you shall not fear other gods.

It happened in the third year of Hoshea the son of Elah king of Israel, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah became king.

He did right in the eyes of Yahweh according to all that David his ancestor had done.

He removed the high places, and broke the columns, and cut down the Asherahs, and broke in pieces the serpent of brass that Moses had made; for to those days the children of Israel burned incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.

He trusted in Jehovah the God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among any that were before him.

He held on to Yahweh; he did not depart from following him, and he kept his commands that Yahweh had commanded Moses.

It happened in the fourth year of King Hezekiah, that [is,] the seventh year of Hoshea the son of Elah king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria came against Samaria and laid siege against her.

At the end of three years, he captured it in the sixth year of Hezekiah, that [is,] the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel; Samaria was captured.

because they did not listen to the voice of Yahweh their God, and they transgressed his covenant; all that he had commanded Moses, the servant of Yahweh, they did not listen [to] nor did they obey.

Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria to Lachish, saying, "I have offended; return from me. That which you put on me, I will bear." The king of Assyria appointed to Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.

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

At that time, Hezekiah cut off the doors of the temple of Yahweh and the doorposts which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and he gave them to the king of Assyria.

And the king of Asshur sendeth Tartan, and the chief of the eunuchs, and the chief of the butlers, from Lachish, unto king Hezekiah, with a heavy force, to Jerusalem, and they go up and come in to Jerusalem, and they go up, and come in and stand by the conduit of the upper pool that is in the highway of the fuller's field.

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?

You think only a word of lips, '[I have] advice and power for the war.' Now, on whom do you trust that you have rebelled 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.

But if you tell me, 'We trust in Yahweh our God;' isn't that he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, 'You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem?'

Now, therefore, pledge thyself, I pray thee, with my lord, the king of Assyria, - that I supply thee with two thousand horses, if thou, on thy part, be able to set riders upon them.

And how dost thou turn back the face of one captain of the least of the servants of my lord, that thou dost trust for thee on Egypt for chariot, and for horsemen?

Furthermore it was by the command of the Lord that I marched up against this place to destroy it. The Lord told me, 'March 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?

Do not listen to Hezekiah; for thus says the king of Assyria, 'Make with me a treaty of peace and come out to me that each [may] eat [from] his vine and each [from] his fig tree, and each [may] drink water [from] his cistern!

Until I come and take you to a land like your land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees, olive oil, and honey, that [you may] live and not die! You must not listen to Hezekiah, for he has misled you [by] saying, "Yahweh will deliver us!"

Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? where the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah, that they have delivered Samaria out of my hand?

Who among all of the gods of the countries have rescued their countries from my hand that Yahweh should rescue Jerusalem from my hand?'"

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."

It happened that when King Hezekiah heard, he tore his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth and went [to] the temple of Yahweh.

It may be Jehovah thy God will hear all the words of Rab-shakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master has sent to reproach the living God; and will rebuke the words which Jehovah thy God has heard. Therefore lift up a prayer for the remnant that is left.

That is how the King Hezekiah's servants approached Isaiah.

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.

"This is what the LORD says: "Never be afraid of the words that you have heard by which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. Look! I'm going to cause an attitude to grow within him so that he'll hear a rumor and return to his own territory, where I'll make him die by the sword in his own land!"'"

When [the] chief commander returned, he found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah, for he had heard that he had departed from Lachish.

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

“Say this to Hezekiah king of Judah: ‘Don’t let your God, whom you trust, deceive you by promising that Jerusalem will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.

Lo, thou hast heard that which the kings of Asshur have done to all the lands -- to devote them; and thou art delivered!

Did the gods of the nations that my {predecessors} destroyed deliver them? [Not] Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, [nor] the children of Eden who [were] in Tel Assar.

And Hezekiah prayed before Jehovah, and said, O Jehovah, the God of Israel, that sittest above the cherubim, thou art the God, even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; thou hast made heaven and earth.

Listen closely, Lord, and hear; open Your eyes, Lord, and see. Hear the words that Sennacherib has sent to mock the living God.

It is true, Lord, that the kings of Assyria have destroyed the nations and their lands.

They have burned the gods of the nations, for they are not really gods, but only the product of human hands manufactured from wood and stone. That is why the Assyrians could destroy them.

So then, O Yahweh our God, rescue us, please, from his hand, that all of the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O Yahweh, you alone are God!"

And Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus saith Jehovah the God of Israel: That which thou hast prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria I have heard.

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.

By the hand of thy messengers thou hast railed on the Lord and said, 'With the multitude of my chariots I am come up to the height of the mountains, even along by the sides of Lebanon, and have cut off the high Cedar trees, and the lusty fir trees thereof, even to the wood of Carmel that belongeth thereto!

Hast thou not heard long ago that I have done it? And that from ancient days I formed it? Now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldest lay waste fortified cities into ruinous heaps.

while their inhabitants, lacking strength, stand dismayed and confused. They were like vegetation out in the fields, and like green herbs just as grass that grows on a housetop dries out before it can grow.

Because you are raging against me, and your arrogance has come up in my ears, I will put my nose ring in your nose and my bridle in your mouth. And I will turn you back on the way that you have come.

" 'This will be the sign for you: Eat the volunteer plants for the year, and in the second year, the volunteer plants that spring up from that. But [in] the third year, sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah Shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward;

For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, And out of mount Zion they that escape: The zeal of Jehovah of hosts shall do this.

By the way that he came to her he shall return; but to this city, he shall not come," declares Yahweh.

It happened in that night that an angel of Yahweh went out, and he struck down one hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of Assyria. When they got up early in the morning, look! All of them [were] dead corpses.

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.

About that time Hezekiah was sick unto the death. And the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came to him, and said to him, "Thus sayeth the LORD: put thine household in an order, for thou shalt die and not live."

"O Yahweh, please remember how I went about before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and [remember] the good that I have done in your eyes." Then Hezekiah {wept bitterly}.

And it came to pass before Isaiah had gone out into the middle city that the word of Jehovah came to him saying,

Then Isaiah said, “Bring a cake of figs. And they brought it and placed it on the [painful] inflammation, and he recovered.”

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. Therefore I will not that: but let the shadow go backward ten degrees."

And Isaiah the prophet calleth unto Jehovah, and He bringeth back the shadow by the degrees that it had gone down in the degrees of Ahaz -- backward ten degrees.

At that time, Berodak-Baladan the son of Baladan king of {Babylon} sent letters and a gift to Hezekiah, for he had heard that Hezekiah had been ill.

Hezekiah heard about them and showed them all of the house of his treasure, both the silver and the gold, the spices, the good olive oil, the room of his weapons, and all that could be found in his treasuries. There was nothing that he did not show them in his palace and in all of his kingdom.

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."

'Look, days [are] coming when all that is in your palace will be carried off; [even] all that your ancestors have stored up until this day, to Babylon; nothing shall be left,' says Yahweh.

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.

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 did evil in the eyes of Yahweh, according to the detestable things of the nations that Yahweh had driven out from the presence of the {Israelites}.

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 made his son to pass through the fire, and practised augury, and used enchantments, and dealt with them that had familiar spirits, and with wizards: he wrought much evil in the sight of Jehovah, to provoke him to anger.

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.

I will not again make the feet of Israel wander from the land which I have given to their ancestors, if they only observe to do according to all that I have commanded them, as far as the law that Moses my servant commanded them."

But Manasseh did not listen and tempted them to do evil more than the nations that Yahweh destroyed before the presence of the {Israelites}.

"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,

therefore thus saith Jehovah the God of Israel: Behold, I will bring evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle.

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!

And though I leave a remnant of mine inheritance, yet I will deliver them into the hands of them that hate them, and they shall be robbed and spoiled of all their enemies:

because they have done evil in my eyes and were provoking me from the day that their ancestors came out from Egypt up to this day.'"

Moreover Manasseh shed innocent blood very much, until he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another; besides his sin with which he made Judah to sin, in doing that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh.

The remainder of the acts of Manasseh and all that he did and his sin that he committed, [are] they not written on the scroll of the events of the days of the kings of Judah?

He did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, as did Manasseh his father.

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;

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.

The remainder of the acts of Amon that he did, [are] they not written on the scroll of the events of the days of the kings of Judah?

He did that which was right in the eyes of Yahweh, and walked in all the way of David his father, and didn't turn aside to the right hand or 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,

Go up to Hilkijah the high priest, that he may sum up the money which is brought into the house of Jehovah, which the doorkeepers have gathered of the people,

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,

that is, [have them give the money] to the carpenters and the builders and the masons—and to buy timber and cut stones to repair the house (temple).

But no reckoning was made with them of the money that was given into their hand, because they dealt faithfully.

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.