1
Now it came to pass in the third year of Hosea, son of Elah, king of Israel,
that Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign.
2
He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name also
was Abi, the daughter of Zachariah.
3
And he did
that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that David, his father, did.
4
He removed the high places and broke the images and cut down the groves and broke in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made; for unto those days, the sons of Israel burned incense to it; and he called it Nehushtan. {Heb. a thing of brass}
5
He trusted in the LORD God of Israel; so that neither after him nor before was there any like him among all the kings of Judah.
6
For he cleaved unto the LORD
and did not depart from following him, but kept his commandments which the LORD commanded Moses.
7
And the LORD was with him,
and he prospered in all things in which he went forth; and he rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him.
8
He smote the Philistines,
even unto Gaza and the borders thereof, from the towers of the watchmen to the fenced city.
9
And in the fourth year of king Hezekiah, which
was the seventh year of Hosea, son of Elah, king of Israel, Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, came up against Samaria and besieged it.
10
And at the end of three years, they took it;
even in the sixth year of Hezekiah, that
is the ninth year of Hosea, king of Israel, Samaria was taken.
11
And the king of Assyria carried away Israel unto Assyria and put them in Halah and in Habor
by the river of Gozan and in the cities of the Medes:
12
because they had not hearkened unto the voice of the LORD their God, but had broken his covenant
and all that Moses, the slave of the LORD, commanded and would not hear
them nor do
them.
13
Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came up against all the fenced cities of Judah and took them.
14
And Hezekiah, king of Judah, sent unto the king of Assyria to Lachish, saying, I have sinned; return from me; that which thou puttest on me I will bear. Then the king of Assyria appointed unto Hezekiah, king of Judah, three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.
15
And Hezekiah gave
him all the silver that was found in the house of the LORD and in the treasury of the king’s house.
16
At that time Hezekiah cut off
the gold from the doors of the temple of the LORD and
from the hinges which Hezekiah, king of Judah, had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria.
17
And the king of Assyria sent Tartan and Rabsaris and Rabshakeh from Lachish to King Hezekiah with a great host against Jerusalem. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. And when they were come up, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which
is in the highway of the washer’s field.
18
And they called the king, and Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, who
was over the household, and Shebna, the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the writer of chronicles went out to them.
19
And Rabshakeh said unto them, Speak ye now to Hezekiah, Thus saith the great king, the king of Assyria, What confidence
is this in which thou dost trust?
20
Thou sayest (but
they are but vain words),
I have counsel and strength for the war. Now on whom dost thou trust, that thou hast rebelled against me?