Later, Ahaz died, as did his ancestors, and was buried alongside his ancestors in the City of David. His son Hezekiah reigned in his place.

King Shalmaneser of Assyria attacked him, and Hoshea became his servant and paid tribute to him.

But the king of Assyria uncovered a conspiracy involving Hoshea, who had sent envoys to King So of Egypt and stopped offering tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done annually. As a result, the king of Assyria placed him under arrest and sent him to prison.

After this, the king of Assyria invaded the entire land, approached Samaria, and began a three year siege.

As a result, during the ninth year of the reign of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and took the Israelis off to Assyria, placing them in Halah, along the Habor River in Gozan, and in cities ruled by the Medes.

This happened because the Israelis had sinned against the LORD their God, who had brought them up from the land of Egypt and from the domination of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, because they were fearing other gods,

and because they were following the rules of the nations whom the LORD had expelled before the Israelis and that the kings of Israel had practiced.

The Israelis practiced secret things that were not right, offending the LORD their God. In addition, they built high places for use by all their towns, watchtowers, and fortified cities.

They set up pillars and Asherim on every high hill and in the shade of every green tree,

and they served idols, a practice that the LORD had warned them, "You are not to do this."

Nevertheless, the LORD had warned both Israel and Judah by means of every prophet and seer: "Turn away from your evil practices and keep my commandments and statutes according to the entire Law that I gave your ancestors and that I sent to you through my servants, the prophets."

They rejected the LORD's statutes, the covenant that he had made with their ancestors, and his warnings that he gave them. They pursued meaninglessness and became meaningless themselves as they followed the lifestyles of the nations that surrounded them, a practice that the LORD had warned them not to do.

They abandoned all of the commands given by the LORD their God, crafted for themselves cast images of two calves, constructed an Asherah, worshipped all of the stars in heaven, and served Baal.

They passed their sons and daughters through fire, practiced divination, cast spells, and sold themselves to practice what the LORD considered to be evil, thereby provoking him.

As a result, the LORD was angry with Israel and removed them from his presence. No one was left except for the tribe of Judah.

so the LORD rejected all of the descendants of Israel, afflicted them, and handed them over to the control of plunderers until he had thrown them away from his presence.

He ripped them away from the heritage of David, even as the people appointed Nebat's son Jeroboam to be king. Jeroboam drove Israel away from following the LORD and made them commit great sin.

The Israelis practiced all the sins that Jeroboam had practiced, and never wavered from them

until the LORD removed Israel from his presence, just as he had warned through all of his prophets who served him. So Israel was carried off into exile from their own land into Assyria, where they remain to this day.

Because the king of Assyria brought captives from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sephar-vaim and settled them in the cities of Samaria to replace the Israelis, the settlers possessed Samaria and lived in its cities.

When they first began to live there, the settlers did not fear the LORD, so he sent lions among them, and they killed a few of them.

So the king of Assyria issued this order: "Take one of the priests whom you carried away and let him go back and live there. Let him teach them the law of the god of the land."

So one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria went to live in Bethel to teach them how they ought to fear the LORD.

Nevertheless, each nation continued to craft their own gods and install them in the temples on the high places that the people of Samaria had constructed every nation in their own cities where they continued to live.

and settlers from Avva built Nibhaz and Tartak. The residents of Sephar-vaim burned their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sephar-vaim.

To this very day, they still follow the former customs: they don't fear the LORD and they don't live in accordance with the statutes, ordinances, laws, or commandments that the LORD had given to the descendants of Jacob whom he renamed Israel

and with whom the LORD had made a covenant when he gave these orders to them:

"You are not to fear other gods, bow down to them, serve them, or sacrifice to them. Instead, it is to be the LORD, who brought you up from the land of Egypt, showing great power and public demonstrations of might, whom you are to fear, worship, and to whom you are to offer sacrifice.

Furthermore, you are to be careful to observe forever the statutes, ordinances, law, and the commandment that he wrote for you. And you are not to fear other gods.

You are not to forget the covenant that I've made with you, and you are not to fear other gods.

But you are to fear the LORD, and he will deliver you from the control of all your enemies."

These nations feared the LORD and also served their carved images. Their descendants did the same thing, as did their grandchildren. Just as their ancestors had done, they also do the same thing to this day.

He was 25 years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem for 29 years. His mother was Zechariah's daughter Abi.

He removed the high places, demolished the sacred pillars, and tore down the Asherah poles. He also demolished the bronze serpent that Moses had crafted, because the Israelis had been burning incense to it right up until that time. Hezekiah called it a piece of brass.

He trusted the LORD God of Israel, and after him there were none like him among all the kings of Judah,

because he depended on the LORD, not abandoning pursuit of him, and keeping the LORD's commands that he had commanded Moses.

So the LORD was with him, and Hezekiah prospered wherever he went, even when he rebelled against the king of Assyria, refusing to serve him.

He attacked the Philistines, invading Gaza and its borders from watchtower to fortified garrison.

In the fourth year of King Hezekiah's reign (that is, during the seventh year of Elah's son Hoshea's reign as king of Israel), King Shalmaneser from Assyria invaded Samaria and besieged it.

After this, the king of Assyria carried Israel off into exile in Assyria, settling them in Halah, on the Habor River in Gozan, and in cities controlled by the Medes,

because they would not obey the voice of the LORD their God. Instead, they transgressed his covenant, including everything that Moses, the servant of the LORD, had commanded, by neither listening nor putting what he had commanded into practice.

During the fourteenth year of the reign of King Hezekiah, King Sennacherib of Assyria approached all of the walled cities of Judah and seized them.

So Hezekiah sent this message to the king of Assyria at Lachish: "I have offended you. Withdraw from me, and I'll accept whatever tribute you impose." So the king of Assyria required Hezekiah to pay him 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold.

Hezekiah gave him all the silver that could be removed from the LORD's Temple and from the treasuries in the king's palace.

At that time, Hezekiah removed the doors to the LORD's Temple and the doorposts that he had overlaid with gold, and gave the gold to the king of Assyria.

Sometime later, the king of Assyria sent Tartan, Rab-saris, and Rab-shakeh from Lachish to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem, accompanied with a large army.

When they called for the King, Hilkiah's son Eliakim, who managed the household, Shebnah the scribe, and Asaph's son Joah the recorder went out to them.

""Why are you so confident? You're saying but they're only empty words "I have enough advice and resources to conduct warfare!'

""Now who are you relying on, that you have rebelled against me? Look, you're trusting on Egypt to lean on like a staff, but it's a crushed reed, and if you lean on it, it will collapse and pierce your hand. Pharaoh, king of Egypt, is just like that to everyone who relies on him!

""Of course, you might tell me, "We rely on the LORD our God!" But isn't it he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has demolished, all the while telling Jerusalem, "You're to worship in front of this altar in Jerusalem?"'

""Come now, and make a deal with my master, the king of Assyria, and I'll give you 2,000 horses, if you can furnish them with riders.

How can you refuse even one official from the least of my master's servants and rely on Egypt for chariots and horsemen?

"Now then, haven't I come up apart from the LORD to attack and destroy this place? The LORD told me, "Go up against this land and destroy it!'"'"

At this, Hilkiah's son Eliakim, Shebnah, and Joah asked Rab-shakeh, "Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, because we understand it, but don't speak the language of Judah to us within the hearing of the people who are on the wall."

But Rab-shakeh spoke to them, "Has my master sent me to talk about this just to your master and to you, and not also to the men who are sitting on the wall, who will soon be eating their own feces and drinking their own urine along with you?"

Then Rab-shakeh stood up and cried out loud, "Listen to what the great king, the king of Assyria has to say.

"Don't let Hezekiah deceive you, because he will prove to be unable to deliver you from my control. And don't let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD by telling you, "The LORD will certainly deliver us and this city will not be handed over to the king of Assyria."

Don't listen to Hezekiah, because this is what the king of Assyria says: "Make peace with me and come out to me! Each of you will eat from his own vine. Each will eat from his own fig tree. And each of you will drink water from his own cistern

until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, one overflowing with grain and new wine, a land filled with bread and vineyards, with olive trees and honey, so you may live and not die."

Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sephar-vaim, of Hena, and Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria from my control?

But the people remained silent and did not answer with even so much as a word, because the king's order was, "Don't answer him."

But Hilkiah's son Eliakim, who managed the household, Shebna the scribe, and Asaph's son Joah the recorder came back to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him what Rab-shakeh had said.

and sent Eliakim the household supervisor, Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests all of them covered in sackcloth to Amoz's son, the prophet Isaiah.

"This is what Hezekiah says: "Today is a day of trouble, rebuke, and blasphemy, because children are about to be born, but there is no strength to bring them to birth. Perhaps the LORD your God will take note of everything that Rab-shakeh has said, whom his master the king of Assyria sent to taunt the living God, and then he will rebuke the words that the LORD your God has heard. Therefore offer a prayer for the survivors who remain.'"

"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!"'"

So Rab-shakeh returned and found the king of Assyria at war with Libnah, because Rab-shakeh had heard that the king had left Lachish.

Did the gods of those nations whom my ancestors destroyed deliver them, including Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and Eden's descendants in Telassar?

Hezekiah took the messages from the couriers, read them, went up to the LORD's Temple, and laid them out in the presence of the LORD.

Then Hezekiah prayed in the presence of the LORD, "LORD God of Israel! You live between the cherubim! You alone are the God of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have fashioned the heavens and the earth.

Turn your ear, LORD, and listen! Open your eyes, LORD, and observe! Listen to the message sent by Sennacherib to insult the living God!

Truly, LORD, the kings of Assyria have devastated nations and their territories,

throwing their gods into the fire, since they weren't gods but rather were the product of men's handiwork wood and stone. And so they destroyed them.

"This is what the LORD has spoken against him: "She despises and mocks you, this virgin daughter of Zion! Behind your back she shakes her head, this daughter of Jerusalem!

Who are you reproaching and blaspheming? Against whom have you raised your voice? And against whom have you lifted up your eyes in arrogance? Against the Holy One of Israel!

By your messengers you have insulted the LORD. You have claimed, "With my many chariots I ascended the heights of the mountains, including the remotest regions of Lebanon; I cut down its tall cedars and the best of its cypress trees. I entered its most remote lodging place and its most fruitful forest.

I myself dug for and drank foreign water. With the sole of my foot I dried up all the streams of Egypt!"

"Didn't you hear? I determined it years ago! I planned this from ancient times, and now I've brought it to pass, to turn fortified cities into piles of ruins

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.

"But when you sit down, when you go out, and when you come in, I'm aware of it!

Because of your rage against me, your complacency has reached my ears. I'll put my hook into your nostrils and my bit into your mouth. Then I'll turn you back on the road by which you came.'

"This will serve as a sign for you: you'll eat this year from what grows by itself, in the second year what grows from that, and in the third year you'll sow, reap, plant vineyards, and enjoy their fruit.

Those who survive from Judah's household will again put down deep roots and bear fruit extensively,

because a remnant will go out from Jerusalem, and survivors from Mount Zion. The zeal of the LORD will bring this about."

"I will defend this city and preserve it for my own reasons, and because of my servant David.'"

That very night, the angel of the LORD went out to the camp of the Assyrian army and killed 185,000 men. Early the next morning, when the army of Israel arose, all 185,000 soldiers were dead.

As a result, King Sennacherib of Assyria left and returned to Nineveh where he lived.

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.'"

So Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD.

"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?"

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.

Hezekiah listened to the entourage and showed them his entire treasury, including the silver, gold, and spices, the precious oil, his armory, and everything that was inventoried in his treasuries. There was nothing in his household or in his holdings that Hezekiah did not show them.

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."

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"?"

Now the rest of Hezekiah's actions, as well as his glorious deeds, including how he constructed the pool and the conduit to bring water into the city, are recorded in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah, are they not?

Hezekiah died, as did his ancestors, and his son Manasseh became king in his place.