1 In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz, king of Judah, became king.
2 He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother was Abi the daughter of Zechariah.
3 He did what was right in the sight of the LORD, just as his father David had done in everything.
4 He removed the high places, smashed the sacred pillars and cut down the Asherah. He broke into pieces the bronze serpent Moses had made, because up to that time the children of Israel had been burning incense to it; it was called Nehushtan.
5 He put his trust in the LORD, the God of Israel. Among all the kings of Judah, none was like him, either after him or before him.
6 He clung to the LORD and did not stop following him; he kept the commandments the LORD had given Moses.
7 The LORD was with him, and he succeeded in whatever he undertook. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and refused to serve him.
8 He defeated the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territory, from watchtower to fortified city.
9 In King Hezekiah's fourth year, the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria marched against Samaria and laid siege to it.
10 At the end of three years they captured it. So Samaria was captured in Hezekiah's sixth year, the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel.
11 The king of Assyria deported Israel to Assyria and settled them in Halah, on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the towns of the Medes.
12 This happened because they had not obeyed the voice of the LORD their God but had broken his covenant, everything Moses the LORD's servant had commanded. They neither listened nor obeyed.
13 In King Hezekiah's fourteenth year, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified towns of Judah and seized them.
14 Hezekiah king of Judah sent this message to the king of Assyria at Lachish: "I have done wrong. Withdraw from me, and I will pay whatever you demand of me." The king of Assyria demanded from Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.
15 Hezekiah handed over all the silver found in the LORD's house and in the palace treasuries.
16 At that time Hezekiah cut away the doors of the LORD's temple and the doorposts that he, Hezekiah king of Judah, had overlaid, and gave them to the king of Assyria.
17 From Lachish the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rab-saris and the Rabshakeh with a large army to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They marched up to Jerusalem, and on arriving they took up a position by the channel of the upper pool, on the road to the Launderer's Field.
18 They called for the king, and Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace administrator, Shebna the scribe and Joah son of Asaph, the recorder, went out to them.
19 The Rabshakeh told them, "Tell Hezekiah: 'This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: What is this confidence you are trusting in?
20 You claim to have a plan and strength for war, but it is only empty talk. Whom are you trusting in, that you have rebelled against me?
21 Look, you are trusting in Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff, which pierces the hand of anyone who leans on it and goes right through it. That is what Pharaoh king of Egypt is to all who trust in him.
22 And if you tell me, "We trust in the LORD our God," is he not the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed, telling Judah and Jerusalem, "You must worship before this altar in Jerusalem"?
23 Come now, make a bargain with my master the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses, if you can put riders on them!
24 How then could you drive back a single officer, even the least of my master's servants, while you trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen?
25 Besides, have I come up to attack and destroy this place without the LORD? The LORD himself told me, "March up against this land and destroy it."'"
26 Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, Shebna and Joah told the Rabshakeh, "Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it. Do not speak to us in Judean where the people on the wall can hear."
27 But the Rabshakeh replied, "Was it only to your master and to you that my master sent me to say these things? Was it not to the men sitting on the wall, who, like you, will have to eat their own dung and drink their own urine?"
28 Then the Rabshakeh stood and shouted in Judean, "Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria!
29 This is what the king says: 'Do not let Hezekiah fool you. He cannot rescue you from my hand.
30 Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the LORD by saying, "The LORD will certainly rescue us; this city will not be handed over to the king of Assyria."
31 Do not listen to Hezekiah! This is what the king of Assyria says: Make your peace with me and come out to me. Then every one of you will eat from his own vine and his own fig tree and drink water from his own cistern,
32 until I come and take you to a land like yours, a land of grain and new wine, of bread and vineyards, of olive trees and honey, so that you will live and not die. Do not listen to Hezekiah, for he is misleading you when he says, "The LORD will rescue us."
33 Has the god of any nation ever rescued his land from the power of the king of Assyria?
34 Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena and Ivvah? Did they rescue Samaria from my hand?
35 Which of all the gods of these lands has rescued his land from my hand? How then could the LORD rescue Jerusalem from my hand?'"
36 But the people kept quiet and said not a word in reply, because the king had ordered, "Do not answer him."
37 Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace administrator, Shebna the scribe and Joah son of Asaph, the recorder, went to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and reported to him what the Rabshakeh had said.