2 Kings 18
1 In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, Hezekiah 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 was Abi, daughter of Zechariah.
3 He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, just as David his father had done.
4 He was the one who removed the shrines on the hills, broke the sacred pillars, and cut down the Asherah; he also smashed the bronze serpent that Moses had made, because until those days the Israelites had been burning incense to it. He called it Nehushtan.
5 He trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel. Among all the kings of Judah, there was no one like him, either before or after him.
6 He clung to the LORD, did not turn away from following him, and kept the commandments the LORD had given Moses.
7 The LORD was with him, and he prospered in everything he undertook. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him.
8 He was the one who struck the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territory, from the watchtower to the fortified city.
9 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 besieged it.
10 They captured it at the end of three years. In Hezekiah's sixth year, which was Hoshea's ninth year as king of Israel, Samaria was captured.
11 The king of Assyria deported Israel to Assyria and settled them in Halah, by the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
12 This happened because they did not obey the voice of the LORD their God, but broke his covenant—all that Moses, the LORD's servant, had commanded. They neither listened nor carried it out.
13 In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria marched against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.
14 Hezekiah king of Judah sent this message to the king of Assyria at Lachish: “I have done wrong. Withdraw from me; I will accept whatever you impose on me.” The king of Assyria imposed on Hezekiah king of Judah a payment of three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.
15 Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the LORD and in the treasuries of the royal palace.
16 At that time Hezekiah cut off the doors of the temple of the LORD and the doorposts that Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and he gave them to the king of Assyria.
17 From Lachish the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rab-saris, and the Rabshakeh to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem with a great army. They marched up and came to Jerusalem. When they arrived, they stopped at the channel of the upper pool, on the road to the Washerman's Field.
18 They called for the king, and Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, the recorder, came out to them.
19 The Rabshakeh said to them, “Tell Hezekiah: ‘This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: What is this confidence you are relying on?
20 You say you have counsel and strength for war, but that is only empty talk. Now, on whom are you relying, that you have rebelled against me?
21 You are relying on Egypt, that broken reed of a staff. If anyone leans on it, it will pierce his hand. That is what Pharaoh king of Egypt is like to everyone who relies on him.
22 And if you tell me, “We are relying on the LORD our God”—isn't he the one whose shrines on the hills and whose altars Hezekiah removed? He told Judah and Jerusalem, “You must bow down before this altar in Jerusalem.”
23 Now make a bargain with my master, the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses, if you can find riders for them.
24 How could you drive back even one officer, the least of my master's servants? Yet you rely on Egypt for chariots and horsemen!
25 Besides, was it without the LORD that I came up against this place to destroy it? The LORD himself told me, “March against this land and destroy it.”’”
26 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 Judean, where the people on the wall can hear.”
27 But the Rabshakeh said to them, “Was it to your master and to you that my master sent me to speak these words? Wasn't it to the men sitting on the wall, who will have to eat their own excrement and drink their own urine along with you?”
28 Then the Rabshakeh stood up and shouted loudly in Judean. He spoke and said, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria!
29 This is what the king says: ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he cannot rescue you from my hand.
30 Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to rely on the LORD by saying, “The LORD will certainly rescue us, and this city will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.”’
31 Do 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 fig tree, and drink water from his own cistern,
32 until I come and take you to a land like your own—a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees, olive oil, and honey. Live, and do not die! Do not listen to Hezekiah, for he is deceiving you when he says, “The LORD will rescue us.”
33 Have the gods of the nations ever rescued their lands from the hand 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 its land from my hand? How then can the LORD rescue Jerusalem from my hand?’”
36 But the people remained silent and did not answer him a word, for the king had commanded, “Do not answer him.”
37 Then 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 the words of the Rabshakeh.
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