He removed the high places, shattered the sacred pillars, and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake that Moses made, for the Israelites burned incense to it up to that time. He called it Nehushtan.

He remained faithful to Yahweh and did not turn from following Him but kept the commands the Lord had commanded Moses.

The Lord was with him, and wherever he went he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him.

He defeated the Philistines as far as Gaza and its borders, from watchtower to fortified city.

In the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Israel’s King Hoshea son of Elah, Shalmaneser king of Assyria marched against Samaria and besieged it.

The Assyrians captured it at the end of three years. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Israel’s King Hoshea, Samaria was captured.

The king of Assyria deported the Israelites to Assyria and put them in Halah and by the Habor, Gozan’s river, and in the cities of the Medes,

because they did not listen to the voice of the Lord their God but violated His covenant—all He had commanded Moses the servant of the Lord. They did not listen, and they did not obey.

In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.

So Hezekiah king of Judah sent word to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have done wrong; withdraw from me. Whatever you demand from me, I will pay.” The king of Assyria demanded 11 tons of silver and one ton of gold from King Hezekiah of Judah.

So Hezekiah gave him all the silver found in the Lord’s temple and in the treasuries of the king’s palace.

At that time Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the Lord’s sanctuary and from the doorposts he had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria.

Then the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rab-saris, and the Rabshakeh, along with a massive army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They advanced and came to Jerusalem, and they took their position by the aqueduct of the upper pool, which is by the highway to the Fuller’s Field.

Then they called for the king, but Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, Shebnah the court secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, the court historian, came out to them.

You think mere words are strategy and strength for war. What are you now relying on so that you have rebelled against me?

Look, you are now trusting in Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff that will enter and pierce the hand of anyone who leans on it. This is how Pharaoh king of Egypt is to all who trust in him.

Suppose you say to me: We trust in the Lord our God. Isn’t He the One whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem: You must worship at this altar in Jerusalem?’

How then can you drive back a single officer among the least of my master’s servants and trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?

Have I attacked this place to destroy it without the Lord’s approval? The Lord said to me, ‘Attack this land and destroy it.’”

Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, Shebnah, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it. Don’t speak with us in Hebrew within earshot of the people on the wall.”

But the Rabshakeh said to them, “Has my master sent me only to your master and to you to speak these words? Hasn’t he also sent me to the men who sit on the wall, destined with you to eat their own excrement and drink their own urine?”

The Rabshakeh stood and called out loudly in Hebrew. Then he spoke: “Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria.

“Don’t listen to Hezekiah, for this is what the king of Assyria says: ‘Make peace with me and surrender to me. Then every one of you may eat from his own vine and his own fig tree, and every one may drink water from his own cistern

until I come and take you away to a land like your own land—a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey—so that you may live and not die. But don’t listen to Hezekiah when he misleads you, saying: The Lord will deliver us.

Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria from my hand?

Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the court secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, the court historian, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and reported to him the words of the Rabshakeh.

When King Hezekiah heard their report, he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the Lord’s temple.

Then he sent Eliakim, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the court secretary, and the leading priests, who were wearing sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz.

They said to him, “This is what Hezekiah says: ‘Today is a day of distress, rebuke, and disgrace, for children have come to the point of birth, but there is no strength to deliver them.

Perhaps Yahweh your God will hear all the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria sent to mock the living God, and will rebuke him for the words that Yahweh your God has heard. Therefore, offer a prayer for the surviving remnant.’”

So the servants of King Hezekiah went to Isaiah,

I am about to put a spirit in him, and he will hear a rumor and return to his own land where I will cause him to fall by the sword.’”

When the Rabshakeh heard that the king of Assyria had left Lachish, he returned and found him fighting against Libnah.

Did the gods of the nations that my predecessors destroyed rescue them—nations such as Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the Edenites in Telassar?

Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers, read it, then went up to the Lord’s temple, and spread it out before the Lord.

Then Hezekiah prayed before the Lord:

Lord God of Israel who is enthroned above the cherubim, You are God—You alone—of all the kingdoms of the earth. You made the heavens and the earth.

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

Lord, it is true that the kings of Assyria have devastated the nations and their lands.

They have thrown their gods into the fire, for they were not gods but made by human hands—wood and stone. So they have destroyed them.

This is the word the Lord has spoken against him:

Virgin Daughter Zion
despises you and scorns you:
Daughter Jerusalem
shakes her head behind your back.

Who is it you mocked and blasphemed?
Against whom have you raised your voice
and lifted your eyes in pride?
Against the Holy One of Israel!

I dug wells,
and I drank foreign waters.
I dried up all the streams of Egypt
with the soles of my feet.

Have you not heard?
I designed it long ago;
I planned it in days gone by.
I have now brought it to pass,
and you have crushed fortified cities
into piles of rubble.

Their inhabitants have become powerless,
dismayed, and ashamed.
They are plants of the field,
tender grass,
grass on the rooftops,
blasted by the east wind.

But I know your sitting down,
your going out and your coming in,
and your raging against Me.

Because your raging against Me
and your arrogance have reached My ears,
I will put My hook in your nose
and My bit in your mouth;
I will make you go back
the way you came.

“This will be the sign for you: This year you will eat what grows on its own, and in the second year what grows from that. But in the third year sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

The surviving remnant of the house of Israel will again take root downward and bear fruit upward.

For a remnant will go out from Jerusalem and survivors, from Mount Zion. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will accomplish this.

He will go back
on the road that he came
and he will not enter this city.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

I will defend this city and rescue it
for My sake and for the sake of My servant David.”

That night the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies!

So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and left. He returned home and lived in Nineveh.

One day, while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword and escaped to the land of Ararat. Then his son Esar-haddon became king in his place.

In those days Hezekiah became terminally ill. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came and said to him, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Put your affairs in order, for you are about to die; you will not recover.’”

Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord,

“Please Lord, remember how I have walked before You faithfully and wholeheartedly and have done what pleases You.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

“Go back and tell Hezekiah, the leader of My people, ‘This is what the Lord God of your ancestor David says: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Look, I will heal you. On the third day from now you will go up to the Lord’s temple.

I will add 15 years to your life. I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city for My sake and for the sake of My servant David.’”

Then Isaiah said, “Bring a lump of pressed figs.” So they brought it and applied it to his infected skin, and he recovered.

Hezekiah had asked Isaiah, “What is the sign that the Lord will heal me and that I will go up to the Lord’s temple on the third day?”

So Isaiah the prophet called out to the Lord, and He brought the shadow back the 10 steps it had descended on Ahaz’s stairway.

At that time Merodach-baladan son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a gift to Hezekiah since he heard that he had been sick.

Hezekiah gave them a hearing and showed them his whole treasure house—the silver, the gold, the spices, and the precious oil—and his armory, and everything that was found in his treasuries. There was nothing in his palace and in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them.

Then the prophet Isaiah came to King Hezekiah and asked him, “Where did these men come from and what did they say to you?”

Hezekiah replied, “They came from a distant country, from Babylon.”

‘The time will certainly come when everything in your palace and all that your fathers have stored up until this day will be carried off to Babylon; nothing will be left,’ says the Lord.

‘Some of your descendants who come from you will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.’”

Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the Lord that you have spoken is good,” for he thought: Why not, if there will be peace and security during my lifetime?

The rest of the events of Hezekiah’s reign, along with all his might and how he made the pool and the tunnel and brought water into the city, are written in the Historical Record of Judah’s Kings.

Hezekiah rested with his fathers, and his son Manasseh became king in his place.

He rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed and reestablished the altars for Baal. He made an Asherah, as King Ahab of Israel had done; he also worshiped the whole heavenly host and served them.

He made his son pass through the fire, practiced witchcraft and divination, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did a great amount of evil in the Lord’s sight, provoking Him.

Manasseh set up the carved image of Asherah, which he made, in the temple that the Lord had spoken about to David and his son Solomon, “I will establish My name forever in this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel.

“Since Manasseh king of Judah has committed all these detestable things—greater evil than the Amorites who preceded him had done—and by means of his idols has also caused Judah to sin,

this is what the Lord God of Israel says: ‘I am about to bring such disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that everyone who hears about it will shudder.

I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line used on Samaria and the mason’s level used on the house of Ahab, and I will wipe Jerusalem clean as one wipes a bowl—wiping it and turning it upside down.

I will abandon the remnant of My inheritance and hand them over to their enemies. They will become plunder and spoil to all their enemies,

because they have done what is evil in My sight and have provoked Me from the day their ancestors came out of Egypt until today.’”

Manasseh also shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem with it from one end to another. This was in addition to his sin that he caused Judah to commit. Consequently, they did what was evil in the Lord’s sight.

The rest of the events of Manasseh’s reign, along with all his accomplishments and the sin that he committed, are written in the Historical Record of Judah’s Kings.

Manasseh rested with his fathers and was buried in the garden of his own house, the garden of Uzza. His son Amon became king in his place.

He walked in all the ways his father had walked; he served the idols his father had served, and he worshiped them.

He abandoned the Lord God of his ancestors and did not walk in the way of the Lord.

Amon’s servants conspired against the king and killed him in his own house.

Then the common people executed all those who had conspired against King Amon and made his son Josiah king in his place.

He was buried in his tomb in the garden of Uzza, and his son Josiah became king in his place.

He did what was right in the Lord’s sight and walked in all the ways of his ancestor David; he did not turn to the right or the left.

“Go up to Hilkiah the high priest so that he may total up the money brought into the Lord’s temple—the money the doorkeepers have collected from the people.

It is to be put into the hands of those doing the work—those who oversee the Lord’s temple. They in turn are to give it to the workmen in the Lord’s temple to repair the damage.

They are to give it to the carpenters, builders, and masons to buy timber and quarried stone to repair the temple.

But no accounting is to be required from them for the money put into their hands since they work with integrity.”

Hilkiah the high priest told Shaphan the court secretary, “I have found the book of the law in the Lord’s temple,” and he gave the book to Shaphan, who read it.

Then Shaphan the court secretary went to the king and reported, “Your servants have emptied out the money that was found in the temple and have put it into the hand of those doing the work—those who oversee the Lord’s temple.”

Then Shaphan the court secretary told the king, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a book,” and Shaphan read it in the presence of the king.

Then he commanded Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Achbor son of Micaiah, Shaphan the court secretary, and the king’s servant Asaiah:

“Go and inquire of the Lord for me, the people, and all Judah about the instruction in this book that has been found. For great is the Lord’s wrath that is kindled against us because our ancestors have not obeyed the words of this book in order to do everything written about us.”

So Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Achbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah went to the prophetess Huldah, wife of Shallum son of Tikvah, son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe. She lived in Jerusalem in the Second District. They spoke with her.

This is what the Lord says: I am about to bring disaster on this place and on its inhabitants, fulfilling all the words of the book that the king of Judah has read,

because they have abandoned Me and burned incense to other gods in order to provoke Me with all the work of their hands. My wrath will be kindled against this place, and it will not be quenched.

because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants, that they would become a desolation and a curse, and because you have torn your clothes and wept before Me, I Myself have heard you—this is the Lord’s declaration—