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2 KingsChapter 18

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In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz began to reign over Judah.
He 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.
He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, just as David his father had done.
He removed the high places, smashed the sacred pillars, and cut down the Asherah. He also broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for down to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it; it was called Nehushtan.[Nehushtan sounds like the Hebrew words for "bronze" and "serpent"; the name may be understood as "the bronze thing."]
He trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel. Among all the kings of Judah there was no one like him, either before him or after him.
He held fast to the LORD and did not turn away from following him; he kept the commandments the LORD had given Moses.
And the LORD was with him; he succeeded in everything he undertook. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him.
He struck down the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territory, from watchtower to fortified city.
In the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria marched against Samaria and laid siege to it.
At the end of three years they captured it. In Hezekiah's sixth year, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken.
The king of Assyria deported Israel to Assyria and settled them in Halah, on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
This happened because they had not obeyed the voice of the LORD their God but had violated his covenant—all that Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded. They neither listened nor obeyed.
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: "I have sinned. Withdraw from me, and I will pay whatever you demand of me." The king of Assyria imposed on Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.
Hezekiah gave him all the silver found in the house of the LORD and in the treasuries of the royal palace.
At that time Hezekiah king of Judah stripped the doors of the temple of the LORD and the doorposts he himself had overlaid, and gave them to the king of Assyria.
The king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rab-saris, and the Rabshakeh with a large army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They came up to Jerusalem and took their stand by the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Launderer's Field.
They called for the king, and Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, Shebnah the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder came out to them.
The Rabshakeh said to them: "Tell Hezekiah: This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: What is this confidence of yours?
You talk of strategy and strength for war, but these are empty words. In whom, then, are you trusting, that you rebel against me?
Look now, you are trusting in Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff, which pierces the hand of anyone who leans on it. That is what Pharaoh king of Egypt is to all who trust in him.
And if you say, 'We trust in the LORD our God'—is he not the very one whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed, telling Judah and Jerusalem, 'You must worship before this altar in Jerusalem'?
Come now, make a bargain with my lord, the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses—if you can find riders for them!
How then can you turn back even one officer among the least of my lord's servants, while you rely on Egypt for chariots and horsemen?
Besides, have I come up to destroy this place without the LORD? The LORD himself said to me, 'Go up against this land and destroy it.'"
Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, along with Shebnah and Joah, said to the Rabshakeh, "Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. Do not speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people on the wall."
But the Rabshakeh answered, "Was it only to your master and to you that my lord sent me to say these things? Was it not also to the men sitting on the wall, who will have to eat their own dung and drink their own urine along with you?"
Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out loudly in Hebrew: "Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria!
This is what the king says: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you. He cannot deliver you from my hand.
Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the LORD when he says, 'The LORD will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.'
"Do not listen to Hezekiah. This is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me. Then each of you will eat from your own vine and your own fig tree and drink water from your own cistern,
until I come and take you away to a land like your own—a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive oil and honey. Live, and do not die! Do not listen to Hezekiah when he misleads you by saying, 'The LORD will deliver us.'
Has any god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?
Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Did they deliver Samaria from my hand?
Who among all the gods of the lands has delivered his land from my hand? How then can the LORD deliver Jerusalem from my hand?"
But the people remained silent and said nothing in reply, for the king had commanded, "Do not answer him."
Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and reported to him what the Rabshakeh had said.
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