2 Kings 18

1In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz became king of Judah.

2He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abi 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, shattered the pillars, cut down the Asherah, and crushed to pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, because until those days the sons of Israel had been burning incense to it; and it was called Nehushtan.

5He trusted in Yahweh, the God of Israel. After him there was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among those who were before him.

6He held fast to Yahweh; he did not turn away from following him, and he kept his commandments, which Yahweh had commanded Moses.

7And Yahweh was with him; wherever he went, he prospered. And he rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him.

8He struck the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territory, from watchtower to fortified city.

9And it happened in the fourth year of King Hezekiah—which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel—that Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria and besieged it.

10At the end of three years they captured it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was captured.

11And the king of Assyria exiled Israel 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 listen to the voice of Yahweh their God, but transgressed his covenant, all that Moses the servant of Yahweh commanded; they neither listened nor did it.

13In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.

14Then Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have offended. Withdraw from me. Whatever you impose on me, I will bear.” So 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 Rab-shakeh from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem with a great army. 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 of the washer’s field.

18And they called for the king, and Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, came out to them, along with Shebna the scribe and Joah son of Asaph, the recorder.

19Then the Rabshakeh said to them, "Please say to Hezekiah, 'Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: What is this confidence that you have trusted in?'"

20You say, ‘It is only a word of the lips’—but counsel and strength are for war. Now in whom have you trusted, that you have rebelled against me?

21Look, you are trusting in Egypt, that broken reed of a staff, which, if a man leans on it, will go into his palm and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him.

22But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the LORD our God,’ is it not he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem’?”

23Now then, please make a wager with my master, the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able to provide riders for them.

24How then can you turn back the face of a single captain among the least of my master's servants, when you trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen?

25Now, was it apart from Yahweh that I came 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 Shebna, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. And do not speak with us in Judean in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”

27Then the Rabshakeh said to them, “Has my master sent me to speak these words only to your master and to you? Has he not also sent me to the men sitting on the wall, who will eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?”

28Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out in a loud voice in Judean, 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 this is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me, and let each man eat from his own vine and each from his own fig tree, and let each man drink the water of his own cistern,

32until 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 oil and honey, so that you may live and not die. And do not listen to Hezekiah, for he is misleading you by saying, ‘Yahweh will deliver us.’

33Have the gods of the nations ever delivered, each one, his 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 has 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 told him the words of the Rabshakeh.