2 Kings 18

1In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, 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 daughter of Zechariah.

3He did what was right in the sight of Yahweh, just as his ancestor David had done.

4He removed the high places, smashed the sacred pillars, and cut down the Asherah pole. He broke into pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. It was called Nehushtan.

5He trusted in Yahweh, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah after him, or among those who were before him.

6He held fast to Yahweh and did not turn away from following him. He kept the commandments that Yahweh had commanded Moses.

7Yahweh was with him, and he succeeded in everything he undertook. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him.

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

9In the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, 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.

11The 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.

12This happened because they did not obey the voice of Yahweh their God but broke his covenant, all that Moses the servant of Yahweh had commanded. They would neither listen nor obey.

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

14So 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 required of Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.

15Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of Yahweh and in the treasuries of the king’s palace.

16At that time Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the temple of Yahweh and from the doorposts that Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and he gave it to the king of Assyria.

17The king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rab-saris, and the Rabshakeh with a large army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They went up and came to Jerusalem. When they arrived, they took their stand by the channel of the Upper Pool, which is on the road to the Launderer’s Field.

18They called for the king, and Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, came out to them, along with Shebna the secretary and Joah son of Asaph, the recorder.

19The Rabshakeh said to them, “Tell Hezekiah, ‘This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: What is this confidence that you are relying on?

20You say you have a strategy and strength for war, but these are only empty words. Now, whom are you trusting, that you have rebelled against me?

21Look, 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.

22And if you tell me, “We trust in Yahweh our God,” is he not the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, telling Judah and Jerusalem, “You must worship before this altar in Jerusalem”?

23Now then, make a bargain with my master the king of Assyria. I will give you two thousand horses, if you can put riders on them.

24How then can you drive back even one officer, the least of my master’s servants, when you rely on Egypt for chariots and horsemen?

25Besides, have I come up against this place to destroy it without Yahweh? Yahweh himself said to me, “Go up against this land and destroy it.”’”

26Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, Shebna, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. Do not speak to us in the language of Judah within earshot of the people on the wall.”

27But the Rabshakeh said to them, “Did my master send me to speak these words only to your master and to you, and not to the men sitting on the wall, who are doomed with you to eat their own dung and drink their own urine?”

28Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out in a loud voice in the language of Judah: “Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria!

29This is what the king says: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he cannot rescue you from the king’s power.

30Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in Yahweh by saying, ‘Yahweh will surely rescue us, and this city will not be handed over to 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. Then each of you will eat from his own vine and his own fig tree and drink water from 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. Do not listen to Hezekiah when he misleads you by saying, ‘Yahweh will rescue us.’

33Has any of the gods of the nations ever rescued his land from the power of the king of Assyria?

34Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Did they rescue Samaria from my power?

35Which of all the gods of these lands has rescued his land from my power, that Yahweh should rescue Jerusalem from my power?”

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 in charge of the palace, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him what the Rabshakeh had said.