1Now it happened in the third year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, that Hezekiah son of Ahaz, king of Judah, became king.
2He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abi, the daughter of Zechariah.
3He did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh, according to all that David his father had done.
4He removed the high places, and shattered the sacred pillars, and cut down the Asherah pole, and crushed the bronze serpent that Moses had made — for until those days the sons of Israel had been burning incense to it — and he called it Nehushtan.
5In Yahweh, the God of Israel, he trusted; and after him there was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among those who were before him.
6He clung to Yahweh; he did not turn away from following him, but kept his commandments that Yahweh had commanded Moses.
7And Yahweh was with him; wherever he went out he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him.
8He struck down the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territories, from watchtower to fortified city.
9Now it happened in the fourth year of King Hezekiah — that is, the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel — that Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria and laid siege to it.
10And they captured it at the end of three years; in the sixth year of Hezekiah — that is, the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel — Samaria was captured.
11The king of Assyria carried Israel into exile to Assyria and settled them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes,
12because they did not obey the voice of Yahweh their God but transgressed his covenant — all that Moses the servant of Yahweh had commanded; they neither heard nor did it.
13In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and seized them.
14Then Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have done wrong; withdraw from me. Whatever you impose on me I will bear.” And the king of Assyria imposed on Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.
15So Hezekiah gave all the silver that was found in the house of Yahweh and in the treasuries of the king’s house.
16At that time Hezekiah cut off the doors of the temple of Yahweh and the doorposts that Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and gave them to the king of Assyria.
17Then the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rab-saris, and the Rabshakeh from Lachish to King Hezekiah with a heavy force at Jerusalem. They went up and came to Jerusalem; they went up and came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is on the highway to the Launderer’s Field.
18They called to the king, and Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was over the house, came out to them, along with Shebnah the scribe and Joah son of Asaph the recorder.
19And the Rabshakeh said to them, “Say now to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: What is this confidence in which you trust?
20You say — but it is only a word of the lips — “There is counsel and strength for war.” Now, in whom do you trust, that you have rebelled against me?
21Now look, you are trusting for yourself in this crushed reed of a staff — in Egypt — which, if a man leans on it, will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him.
22But if you say to me, “We trust in Yahweh our God” — is he not the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, “Before this altar you shall bow down in Jerusalem”?
23Now then, make a wager with my lord the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses — if you are able on your part to set riders on them.
24How then can you turn back the face of a single governor among the least of my lord’s servants, while you trust for yourself in Egypt for chariots and horsemen?
25Now, is it apart from Yahweh that I have come up against this place to destroy it? Yahweh said to me, ‘Go up against this land and destroy it.’”
26Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, and Shebnah, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it; and do not speak with us in Judahite in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”
27But the Rabshakeh said to them, “Is it to your master and to you that my master sent me to speak these words? Is it not to the men sitting on the wall, who must eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?”
28Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out in a loud voice in Judahite, and he spoke and said, “Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria!
29Thus says the king: ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you from his hand.
30And do not let Hezekiah make you trust in Yahweh, saying, “Yahweh will surely deliver us, and this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”’
31Do not listen to Hezekiah, for thus says the king of Assyria: Make peace with me and come out to me, and each of you will eat from his own vine and each from his own fig tree, and each of you will drink the water of his own cistern,
32until I come and take you 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, fresh oil, and honey — that you may live and not die. Do not listen to Hezekiah, for he misleads you, saying, ‘Yahweh will deliver us.’
33Have the gods of the nations actually delivered, each his own land, from the hand of the king of Assyria?
34Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria from my hand?
35Who among all the gods of the lands have delivered their land from my hand, that Yahweh should deliver Jerusalem from my hand?
36But the people kept silent and did not answer him a word, for the king’s command was, ‘Do not answer him.’
37Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and they reported to him the words of the Rabshakeh.
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